I got an email from someone who is very confused by the menu on our website and wants it to be removed. 
Some people should not be allowed to use the internet.
IT finally saw fit to upgrade my company’s computers to Windows 10. Yay? Something went wrong with my upgrade, so someone had to remote in and perform a manual installation. In the process of doing this, they upgraded my Office package from an older 365 subscription to 365 for Enterprise. Great, right?
Except that my company has a single, critical program that is completely incompatible with this version of Office. >.< I’ll give the IT guy credit, he spent most of the day trying to help me solve the problem. While waiting on a reboot, I did a quick poll of my immediate coworkers, and found one other person with the same problem. The solution? Remote into another, older computer whenever you need to use the program in question. This isn’t a problem for my coworker, since his office (like most offices in the building) has two ethernet jacks, so he was able to get a spare computer to have as his personal remote workstation. Unfortunately for me, the spare ethernet jack in my office hasn’t worked for a couple of years now, and no one seems to know how it can be fixed, so I’ve had to stash my remote computer in an unused office. I plastered it with DO NOT TOUCH notes; hopefully no one will mess with it until this problem is resolved.
Vacation policy - a double screwing!
Normal policy is to allow one week to be carried over to be used in Q1 of the following year. Last year, because of the pandemic shutting everything down they allowed us to carry over 2 weeks to be used by the end of Q2.
Given where we were earlier this year (the general public wasn’t able to get a vaccine until Apr or May, many events either outright cxl’d or postponed until later in the year, etc.) I kind of assumed that they’d keep the same exception policy. Noooo, they finally told us that they were going back to the standard policy…in mid-Sept. Uhhh, thanks for letting me know when I could have enjoyed that during the summer.
Now trying to use up that extra week that must be used by this month, around when cow-orkers already beat me to the calendar, only to realize that we don’t get the two ‘Eves’ off. Stoopit Federal Reserve screw the banking world out of Sat holidays.
Fed Reserve holiday notes:
*For holidays falling on Saturday, Federal Reserve Banks and Branches will be open the preceding Friday.
**For holidays falling on Sunday, Federal Reserve Banks and Branches will be closed the following Monday — July 5, 2021, June 20, 2022, December 26, 2022, and January 2, 2023.
Rant / maybe positive: Union members voted to rejected the utterly crappy / well into insulting “last and best offer”. I was kind of surprised, as usually we grumble then accept whatever dregs they offer. Adjusting for inflation, I earn .30c less/hr than I did 12 years ago. And, being government, there is a set ceiling, which I hit years ago. To satisfy my own anger, I voted to reject - I’m just wowed that the majority did, also.
Actual rant: How does one tell their supervisor, who one already has a difficult relationship with, that they’re dumb?
Her: You need to do X on this case
Me: No, I would do X if criteria Q was met. It’s not, so I’m leaving it at Y.
Her: Expounds (incorrectly) about criteria B, which has nothing to do with anything. If you have questions, consult with a county attorney. Oh, and I’m not counting this error against you 
Me: Deletes draft email wherein I note there is nothing to consult an attorney about, as it’s a process problem, not a legal problem and that she’s bordering on ignorant if the believes X is the right way to handle this, it’s never been handled that way, and by the way, that passive fucking aggressive smilie face makes me want to do very mean things.
She has become a super micromanager over the pettiest of things, leading to one of our stronger team members to accept another position. She continuously threatens that we will not get paid if we do not follow her random reindeer games scheduling bullshit down to the letter - she has absolutely NO ability to grasp the big picture. We’ve already butted heads multiple times over scheduling and case processes. She loves to tell us “My door is always open! If you have any questions I’ll gladly set time aside to help you!” From everyone I’ve spoken with, when they’ve asked her a question it’s always “I’m not sure, let’s look in the manual”. FFS, we wouldn’t come to you if we could find the answer in the manual. I tried giving her the benefit of the doubt - new supervisor / her boss is difficult - but I can’t anymore.
If you can document her insistence on the erroneous process-following, is malicious compliance an option? You know, the kind that doesn’t have direct adverse consequences for your clients?
I applied for a job; just got the form rejection letter back - the position has been cxl’d, you’re welcome to apply for other positions, blah, blah, blah. Now I like it when companies come back & tell you that you’re out for whatever reason so I can cross that one off my list (literally, strikethru in the spreadsheet). However, I don’t remember applying for anything recently so I went back to said spreadsheet. When I applied for this “pandemic” was not a word that everyone knew. Feb 2020. Uhh, thanks for getting back to me in a timely fashion. I was holding my breath this whole time waiting to hear from you.
Clearly someone was cleaning up old recs but to have it send out an email 22 months later???
I was rejected for a job with a US Government agency in October 1994. I interviewed for the job in January 1992. I was on my third job by then (this was at the beginning of my career)
And as of today I know that cxl means cancel.
Wait, I’m assuming that you don’t mean the email from the company was abbrev’ing that, do you?
Well, you don’t want to work for a place like that, with their cxl culture…
Just for giggles, while chitchatting with a county attorney yesterday I asked about this situation. Nothing case specific, clearly stating I understand this is a process thing, not a legal thing, but just appease me.
Afterwards, I sent my supervisor a nyah-nyah email, which started with: “Per my consultation with County Attorney…”
In my office, we have the Facility manager’s office currently empty, the acting manager’s office, a fair size conference room, and out in the warehouse is the HR office. All of these have doors and are not shared with other individual. We have a large breakroom where we have vending machines, ice machine, microwaves etc. So where do the Acting manager, the HR manager and the EHS guy go to have a private meeting? that’s right the breakroom. And looked at me like I’m intruding when I went to get ice.
Today was a dumpster fire of a shit show. I begged leave (and was granted) ten minutes to go GTFO for a smoke break.
Newbie Dumbass: “You leaving for the day?”
Me: “Nope.”
ND: “Have a great evening!”
So … do you not… listen to my answers to your questions? (That would explain a lot.) Do you perhaps not comprehend the difference between “yes” and “no” instead?
Do you just ask questions without giving a shit about the answer?!? (That would explain a lot, too.)
2022 has not been good to me, so I’m a little cranky this morning. I finally got the content for the calendar (yes, it is a 2022 calendar). We’ve done this for a few years, and we have a footer on the calendar pages that hasn’t changed. So the person who’s in charge of the content sent me a file that has a different phone number in the footer. I thought it looked a little strange, so I did a little research, and it turns out this number belongs to someone in a different department. Also we have two blank pages in the calendar, so that’s going to cause problems. These people are always a giant mess. I should be used to it by now.
Well, as long as it’s printed and shipped by 1/1/2022…
Just, whoa… I’ve had a number of shortsighted/ADD/flakey clients, but this is way beyond any of those. You have got to make a blog/graphic novel/coffee table book of your stories.
(Although we’d settle for many more posts from you…)
… and now the shoplifters are setting fires to distract staff and customers in order to better facilitate stealing stuff.
Because retail workers don’t have enough to deal with. Yep, now, in addition to half-bare shelves, entitled Karens/Kevins, covid round 2 leading to short-staffing, and bitchy customers we now have arson to deal with.
I am soooo glad I’m on vacation right now.
Yes, really, someone (actually two someones) started actual fires in the store. They lit up the cotton ball display, a couple of foam nerf toys, and and some underwear in the woman’s department. It actually was a very effective distraction technique. Nothing like fire to catch your attention, right?
Fortunately it was noticed quickly and between staff and decent customers all the fire was put out quickly. Aside from a few bits of singed merchandise nobody was hurt and the store suffered minimal damage.
Yes, yes, we have surveillance footage of the perpetrators. However, if there is one demographic that actually WILL be compliant with mask rules it’s shoplifters (and arsonists).
They also hit a Walmart over the state line. Except they didn’t get on top of the fires right away there so more damage took place. So far no repeats but damn this shit be gettin’ crazy.
It seems that crazy is the new normal. We might soon hear a bored voice over the PA:
“Housekeeping to Aisle 12, bring extinguisher.”
And I thought that people spitting on the food was bad enough…
Come February 2nd I will probably be on strike. I’ve never walked a picket line. We’ve always agreed to our employers offers, which for more than a few years led us to essentially taking pay cuts.
Not going to lie, I’m kinda scared. I have bills. Medical issues. At the same time, this is the first time I’ve truly felt anger towards my employer.
We have an administrator, earning a salary of $260k/year (more than double the average Minnesota administrator salary), calling us ungrateful wretches for not accepting .60c/hr annual raises for the next three years. After frontline employees (social workers, community nurses, child protection workers) have had to provide their own PPE and lose wages in mileage reimbursement - all while working in homeless encampments, unsafe environments, and no base office. After many of us have had to upgrade our internet to continue to effectively provide assistance to our clients. Knowing full well we’re the poorest paid metro county dealing with the most economically challenged populace. All while sitting on almost half a billion dollars of federal funds that were meant to be directed to support us.
My newer supervisor, a twit of the highest order, has sent out guilt emails, noting how the poor supervisors will have to do their best if we strike. Cry me a fucking river. We’ve lived under ‘Do more with less’ for eons. Less than six months ago y’all dumped 30% more work on us without any training. Y’all recently decided to reinterpret a sentence in our manual, stating it now means X, when it’s meant Y for the last 16 years. Then acted shocked when employees spoke up.
Fuck it. Catch me next week masked up and walking the picket line.
Sending moral support in advance. Good luck.
Also, update on the arsonshoplifters: both parties have been caught. Bail set at $850,000.
MissTake, do you have any updates on the strike? Is it still happening? I hope things improve for you and your coworkers.
We folded.
Dammit.
The County Administrator (forever to be known as Voldemort) managed to stand 99% of his ground, shaming us undeserving wretches in the media, and getting the commissioners to denigrate us in public, too.
The one “win” we obtained is during the state’s emergency pandemic order, employees were able to go negative in leave balances and the county agreed to wipe out all negative balances. Which literally only helps a handful of people and was planned to occur in a few months anyways.
Oh! And the front line workers can be safe being in the midst of their clients with the whole few cases of N95 masks obtained.
We will receive a one time $500 “technology” payment, to offset the costs we’ve incurred working from home. It will be added to our normal checks, so I expect to see maybe $250, which is less than two months of what I pay for a business internet line.
And they will not go back to January 1st, so none of this pathetic “plethora of riches” will hit us until our first check in March.
Our union has been saying it was a win. No, it’s not. However, what it all came down to was a bunch of union member keyboard warriors who voted against the initial contract, then decided they would not strike. Of 3400 union members, only about 900 actually voted on the contract and about 400 voted to strike.
So my broke ass self will continue to struggle…
I’m sorry to hear that. 
You deserve better.