Another entry in the series of Online Meetings That Went Bad:
I’m a freelance education writer. I’m starting a new project that is easily the most complex I’ve seen in some years. I don’t think it needs to be anywhere near this complicated, but what do I know? Pretty much every day they are putting out a new training video, which the writers are expected to attend live or watch later on, and today was no exception.
First, the invites were issued at 11 am EST, for a 3 pm meeting.
Second, the meeting began with a back-and-forth between two of the organizers along the lines of “So what did you want to talk about?” “Oh, I don’t know–I thought it was your meeting.”
Third, the thrust of the information so far has been “Follow whatever is in the course map.” Today, once they finally got underway, they showed a draft of some poor writer’s first submission and said, “Now, it’s true that the course map said to use this functionality, but as you can see [no, I can’t] it doesn’t work at all for this lesson, so you’ll need to use this functionality [which does not appear in the guidelines] instead.”
Fourth, the meeting was supposed to run for half an hour. At 4 pm they were still talking.
There’s more but just typing this much is sending me over the edge. @Maus_Magill, @Kelevra, others, I feel your pain. What a fucking waste of time and energy.
Our new director has his weekly all-hands meeting on Tuesdays. Coupled with my immediate team’s working meeting on Wednesday (I like this one - it replaces the “soft training” that comes from working together in an office.), and my manager’s meeting on Thursday, I now have three mornings of non-productivity.
My biggest gripe, though, is that he is insistent that we all are on camera. Do you have any idea how hard it is for a cynical gen-xer to not roll his eyes constantly?
On the bright side, I have been collecting backgrounds. So far I have:
The bridge ot the Executor (Vader’s flagship)
The OG Enterprise bridge.
The 1960s batcave
Phineas and Ferb’s backyard
Thw Dufensmerch Evil Inc building.
Caused some conflict/frustration with a particular coworker today. Much of it is my laziness, and getting used to new resources (excuses, excuses, I know), but some of it is also just fundamental disagreement (down to the “yes it is,” “no it isn’t” level).
It just makes me uncomfortable. I’ve been here longer than him, and my continued employment isn’t his to decide directly, but it’s still uncomfortable for obvious reasons.
Just gotta do better, I guess. At least then “all” I have to deal with are the fundamental differences in philosophy.
I was expecting a file transfer from my coworker, and effin’ security chose that time to send me some phishing scam. And of course, my dumb ass clicked on the link. I was stressed out and under a very quick deadline - like 20 minutes!
This coworker is a new hire, and does things a little differently like using Teams to store shared files and stuff, so I didn’t really pay attention to the style or content of the email. The timing was eerie! His email came a couple of minutes later.
So now I have to take the damned training again. Shit.
I’m struggling with the dynamic in my team. I work remotely full time which makes things extra difficult but I’m new and after close to a year I’m still barely getting decent work unless I nag and ask constantly. I have routine tasks assigned, but there’s a lot more I’m capable of and very, very good at, and I’m not being used for any of it despite those skills ostensibly being why they recruited me in the first place. The feedback from the Idiot Team of Project Managers is generally along the lines of “oh we didn’t know you knew how to do this” but…they don’t even ask, and the Engineering managers don’t say anything about it unless I bring it up, ever. It’s like I don’t figure in their plans at all, I’m just there for routine grunt work and as arrogant as it sounds, I’m way too fucking skilled for that.
The work I want to do exists in this company. They just aren’t assigning it to me and it’s starting to be humiliating to constantly have to ask to be included in higher level discussions. Why go get a subject matter expert and expect them to do the bare minimum?
I know I outgrew my last employer, there’s no role there I want to go back to (though they’d take me). I’m just not sure what to do and it’s really getting me down.
Sitting around waiting for a meeting to start this afternoon, someone mentioned that the inventor of Pop-Tarts died. This prompted one guy to start lamenting about how Pop-Tarts had poisoned a generation of children, and another guy to whine about how Michelle Obama made the supplier of toaster pastries to the military make them out of whole wheat with no frosting.
I carry a radio on my job. If a clerk’s machine starts giving trouble, the clerk summons help by pressing a button on a call box. I come over, the clerk explains why the machine needs help, and I fix the problem, usually within two minutes.
Please Mister or Miss Clerk, don’t just press the button and go on a break without at least sticking around long enough for me to get there so you can tell me WHY you pressed the button. I’m good, but if I have to figure out what needs doing without a single clue, well, I’m not that good. I’ll just go wait for another call to come in and answer that one.
Last Wednesday, my manager got word from head office that our phone system was getting a bit of a software upgrade over the weekend, and could she please advise the weekend staff that the phones wouldn’t be working for about twelve hours. No worries, done.
I arrive at the office on Monday morning, and all the landline phones are dead. Well, not dead, but I have to log into a website and punch in a code shown on my phone display, which activates one line for me. Some new changes: all of my speed-dial numbers about forty of them, are wiped. I no longer have the ability to forward calls when I’m not at my desk. To transfer calls takes aboiut six more buttons and screens than it used to. We can no longer just punch a four-digit exchange to reach other people in the building, we have to dial the whole number including area code. There’s no roll-over for call waiting; if another call arrives when I’m on the phone, it doesn’t bounce to my co-worker any more, as her phone isn’t even registered to her company account.
Needless to say, this was a bit more than a minor tweak. We weren’t forewarned, we have no instruction manual for how to use this (apparently new) system, and a huge chunk of this office’s functionality has been hobbled. Slow clap for the decisionmakers at head office.
We recently advised a customer they probably didn’t need to use a hyper-specialized stainless steel for their medical devices (no entry into the body at all) and could probably just use plain old 316L SS. They save money, and we save manufacturing time (and money). They agreed almost a year ago, and we’ve simply been waiting for their new revision to pass through all their checks and sign-offs. Knowing this would be eventually coming, and nothing was going to change process-wise, and that I’d be on the hook for updating all of the controlled engineering documentation, I went ahead and prepped everything so I would just have to put in the new revision letter and make minor updates depending on how drawings and specifications changed. When we got the new drawings and revisions yesterday, it was HOT HOT HOT!!!, because of course it is, but I was done in a few hours, only needing contributions from the quality department.
No one in Quality has even considered starting work on it, and management is asking for progress reports, because we make these parts every day, and the customer wants to update purchase orders for the new revisions. They can’t do that, because we - by regulation - cannot make those parts, because we haven’t controlled the documents to make those parts. Even after the changes are made, they still have to go through a whole approval process both in-house and with the customer before they can go live. I’ve tried to toss it over the metaphorical wall to have the discussion with the people actually holding up the next step, but I’m still getting the emails and mentions.
Meanwhile, my proposal to digitize everything from document creation to approval and signing has been met with great enthusiasm and zero commitment from leadership. So we’re still printing out anything that needs approval, only to sign it and scan it back in. Multiple times for some things. It’s inefficient and wastes my time, and I don’t like it.
Have you all been reprimanded yet for the work slowing down? This is the usual next step in management 101. Followed by a management working group and retreat (in a nice location, with food and beverage) to discuss how to deal with the poor employee attitudes.
I was on vacation for a week. i came back and the cleaning crew cleanded my cubicle supposedly they did everyones. among other things, they through away the paper napkins and plastic utensils I had saved. Opened a bag of sugar free candy that was on my desk and mixed it with the old canady. They stacked up the paperwork on my desk and rearranged the things on my walls. They moved stuff that had no reason to be dusted. Moved my tissue box, my rolodex, humg stuff on the wall that was not humg before. threw away cup i keep behind my computer to take some medication with.
When I was out on bereavment leave they did the same thing and also decided the glass bowl i had to eat soup etc out of woujld make a nice candy bowl.
This is all minor things but damn it is my stuff where I am used to it being. They dont speak english so I can say anything to the, the man next to me got mad that i was complaining about this becasue “they were just doing what they were asked to do” next time he is out I am thinking about stacking up all of his papers so they are all mixed up.
No, because the group to whom we directly report is also plagued by the cruddy phone upgrade. It’s head office, blocks away, that figured “Hey, nobody (important) still uses land lines, right? Can we change something?”
You are a much more understanding person than I am…I would hit the damn ceiling. I get irritated enough when I find evidence that the cleaning crew has wiped down the desks (keyboard backlight on from the button having been hit, papers slightly askew, inbox shifted from its usual location); I can’t imagine a complete disruption like you’re describing.
One positive to the keyboard backlight thing is that I immediately know if I need to wipe down my keyboard with an antibacterial wipe, because who the hell knows where the cleaning crew got that cloth…
So … corporate has seen fit to install an ATM/Safe/deposit machine. We are supposed to be able to drop our shift money, buy small bills, and the person doing paperwork is supposed to be able to deposit the daily deposit in it. Now, I only work once a week. The thing has been here for a month. It has not been working any time I’ve been there. Well, it was working briefly Saturday, until the person responsible for the deposit made the deposit. Note the thing had not been working when she got there and she got it “working” as soon as she did the deposit (the only thing asked of it) it promptly broke down again. She thinks it’s because she had too many 1’s.
So, this company contracted with our company to use this awesome piece of technology for all of our cash needs. I guess one of the (many) maintenance guys who have come to work on it told a coworker that our money is too dirty and crinkled. How on earth could a machine used in a convenience store as the one way we can get change, make deposits, make drops, be so sensitive that it can’t handle dirty, crinkled, torn, or too much money? This is US currency. It spends time in pockets, on floors, at the bottom of beach bags, on the floor, in shoes, between women’s boobs and in their armpits, etc. There is no way we can wash, iron, and repair the money that goes in this stupid machine.
This week’s new rant: the engineering department has been gutted in the past two years due to reduced cash flow. This includes every project manager and engineer. Current department is CNC programmers (wizards, I tell ya!), two engineering techs, a validation tech, and an engineering manager. No engineers to develop processes. No project managers to guide new product introduction. No reasonable way to actually introduce new product lines in an effective manner. Company’s COO deigned to visit the plant and proceeds to admonish the engineering department for not introducing new products in a timely manner. When asked by a shop member who works with engineering how the department is supposed to introduce said new products with zero engineers, the response was “figure it out”.
One tech just put in his resignation when the first product he’s managing goes live. The validation tech has put out feelers, and the other tech finally started putting in applications elsewhere a few months ago, with no fucks given on where projects may be when it happens.
How on earth could a machine used in a convenience store as the one way we can get change, make deposits, make drops, be so sensitive that it can’t handle dirty, crinkled, torn, or too much money? This is US currency. It spends time in pockets, on floors, at the bottom of beach bags, on the floor, in shoes, between women’s boobs and in their armpits, etc. There is no way we can wash, iron, and repair the money that goes in this stupid machine.