The advantage is that you know when you get vacation (between projects) and you can work in your jammies or in old paint splattered sweats and a huge old T from your ex. If you’re one of those people who need to go for a walk when they get stuck, you can do it. And if you’re one of those people who’ve ever been told by their manager “work more slowly, you don’t want to make those slugs look bad” you even get time to clean the house, while still delivering things on time (do it close to the last minute, but ahead of it - it’s like playing The Prize Is Right with the clock).
Another problem with corporate “life” is that I do spend a fair amount of time not doing anything (hello SDMB) because I work quickly and efficiently, but I need to have “face time” also known as butt in seat. I have gone through the “stages of corporate slackerdom”, believe me. By that I mean that at first I would always look for something else productive to do and mostly found that the things I chose, like writing much needed documentation, weren’t valued or ever used. I also tried asking the boss and coworkers if they needed help with anything or if there were new projects I could take on. Those earned me the occasional little 15-minute task, but more likely a sit-around-and-wait for assignments that never came (or were themselves 15 minute tasks).
I still do look for work on my own at times, and also ask for new assignments at times. But it’s slow going. I am way more productive in my personal life and my volunteering. And that’s just pretty sad, since I spend so much time at work.
I would like to pit my whiny coworkers. Coworker #1 is upset because we’re not doing something the way he wants to do it. The problem is, we don’t have time to do it the way he wants to do it. We have a lot more work to do that’s much higher-priority. This summer has been insanely busy, I have a to-do list that’s a mile long, and I’m really the only one that’s working on this project. If he wants to bitch about it, I would think he could do a little more of the actual work. I’m looking forward to more staff meetings where he gets huffy about the project not being done the way he wants it to be done, and wanting to do it in a way that would make my job much more difficult and make me much less productive. That is not going to happen.
And then there’s my Annoying Coworker. We were discussing one of her projects at a staff meeting recently. She was so unhappy with other coworkers not being as involved in this project as she would like them to be (because see above, we’re all very busy with things that are higher-priority) that she was almost crying in the meeting, she was very snappy, rejected every idea that anyone proposed, and it was very unpleasant. If I acted like that in a staff meeting I’d probably be fired. I got told I needed to go into counseling because I asked this same coworker to turn down some music she was playing in her office. :rolleyes:[URL=“http://boards.straightdope.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/”]
I found out yesterday that my boss is leaving, and I’m not happy about it! He’s not leaving the company, he’s just not going to be my department’s boss anymore. Little bit of backstory…
When I first started this job I had a really laid-back guy as the boss. Nice guy but maybe a little too laid back. He clashed with grand-boss a few too many times and wound up quitting. Then grand-boss was my immediate supervisor and that was not fun at all. Grand-boss is a rageoholic who likes to intimidate people and looks for reasons to blow up.
Current boss is also the supervisor of another department that works closely with mine, so it seemed like a logical step to have him be in charge of both departments. Only problem is it’s too much work for one person. Poor guy was stretched way too thin. So we knew something was going to happen eventually, we were just hoping we’d be the department to keep him. No such luck.
It sucks, I actually like my boss. He’s smart, fair, kind, and he brings donuts on peoples’ birthdays. He only gets worked up when the situation truly calls for it. Now we’re all wondering who will replace him, and since grand-boss is going to be the one who decides it we’re all more than a little worried.
It’s been more than six months since I worked with my former boss and coworker and I can’t believe that I’m STILL mad about things that went on when I worked there.
My boss’s idea of training was “Well, you’ve done this before right? Ok. Fine. I won’t train you!” and throwing me to the wolves. So that when I did something that was, by her anyway, perceived to be incorrect she would have cause to bitch me out about it. My coworker was constantly up on my ass going “You’re doing shit wrong.” and then griping at me about it.
When I told my boss I had too much to do and not enough time in my shift to do it, she was like, “Well that’s just too damn bad.”
My coworker asked me about my family while we were making small talk during lunch when I first started there. I told her I had been married for a good long time and I had a son who is autistic. She said if I would just “open up a can of whoopass and beat his ass more often” he wouldn’t be autistic or have ADHD anymore. o.O
She also didn’t like the fact that I like to read…a lot. After about the first couple of weeks, I decided I didn’t want to talk to her during lunch so I would always bring a book or my e-reader. Apparently she was offended by this and by the fact that I read more than just religious-themed romances (I’m not religious…I’m Buddhist. Which also apparently offended her) and the Bible.
At one point, my mgr decided that we all had to “air our grievances” in a meeting. When I told her that Coworker was a bully and a bitch and I was sick and tired of being picked on, Mgr went to HR because she was afraid I was going to do that myself. I hadn’t even though of it…I was just going to grit my teeth and put up with it. HR told Mgr that the word “bully” had been used too liberally in this case, that my coworker was NOT a bully.
I was like, 'Really? REALLY?" and transferred to another campus (I work in a school kitchen) after that because I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I would wake up every day trying to come up with a good reason to call in sick to work because I hated working with these people every day.
Four of the coworkers on my side of the office apparently cannot walk without shuffling their feet. It was a bad enough when just the boss and one secretary were shuffling, but our two most recently hired secretaries do it as well. All day long, past my desk to get to the printer, the fax, the breakroom…shuffle shuffle shuffle. I fear one day I’m going to lose all control, channel my long-gone Grandma, and shout “pick up your God damned feet!” Shuffle shuffle shuffle…shuffle shuffle shuffle…how can they even walk like that? It’s driving me insane…insane, I tell you!
Early stages of the zombie apocalypse?
My division has two supervisors: Supervisor #1, my supervisor, is excellent at his job. He’s knowledgeable, has our back, and is willing to do what is needed to overcome the red tape that makes our jobs difficult.
Supervisor #2 is basically the opposite. He’s never actually performed our job on the outside, and believes in doing things “by the book” no matter what, even when the book is clearly wrong and makes things worse for our customers and clients. He’s also a supreme micromanager, and thinks nothing of sending back work for revision if, say, one comma is out of place, even for documents that stay in-house. We’ve had a few retirements lately, and a couple of the retirees have told me directly that he is the reason they decided to retire when they did.
The good supervisor has just taken a job in Headquarters. No one has told us anything about how he will be replaced, even though Friday was his last day. If his job is posted, I’m thinking about applying just so I can be sure the bad supervisor is not over me. If Bad Supervisor gets us all, I expect a LOT more retirements and defections; the department has several people who can leave.
On a semi-related note, WTF is going on with the listings on USAJOBS?
I’m a Federal worker (hence all the red tape issues above) and have been looking to relocate since February. Up to July, I didn’t have much luck with jobs (only 1 interview), but there were at least some jobs in the locations I’m considering. I always found 1-3 per month that were worth an application.
I took a class on completing Federal applications in late July. The instructor mentioned that there were always a bunch of jobs posted right around September 30th as Fed agencies figured out how much money they’d have for openings by the end of September, which is the end of the Federal fiscal year.
Or not. Since that class, the postings have essentially dried up in all the areas I’ve been searching. They haven’t increased elsewhere; they just don’t really exist. But Midwest/upper South locations? I can’t find them with a search party. And now with my good supervisor gone and no one telling us how he’ll be replaced, I’m feeling desperate. Fuck!
Hi, me again! I desperately want to tell my coworkers something, but I can’t without repercussions, so I’ll pretend you guys are my coworkers and type it here.
Yeah, I don’t know any more than you do about this new customer feedback form. It wasn’t my baby. The directors designed it, apparently without any input from anybody else. Especially not from the people who I had always assumed would be part of designing customer feedback forms, like say, marketing. Sure, it’s full of typographical errors and bad grammar and half the questions don’t make any sense. And yes, it’s actually two forms addressing two different types of audience smashed into one feedback form. I tell you, I didn’t do it, so sending me your kind suggestions for improvements isn’t going to help. Also, complaining to me about the above isn’t going to help because I was just as blindsided by the thing as you were - or worse actually because I was asked on 3pm Friday to publish the form so that the customers could send their feedback by COB Monday. Yeah, as if, right? And I’m sorry but when the customers do send the completed form back to us, I have no clue who should get that feedback. I don’t even know what they’re trying to accomplish with this new form. There has been zero communication about it. Nada. Zip. Stop talking to me and take your questions, your helpful corrections, and your obvious befuddlement to the directors. I’ll be right there with you, standing a little behind you and to the left, slightly hidden behind the lamppost so I can hopefully avoid any of the shit flying out of the fan. But yes, this whole thing is a fiasco but I had nothing to do with it. Thank you.
To the people doing the construction work:
Go Away!
We’re so over having remodels done in our space, and all they really did today was show up en masse with their plans and talk to each other about them and generally get in our way.
Well, that’s all they did before noon. That’s when I left.
(For the record, I went in at 4 am, that’s how I got to go home at noon).
Perhaps they’re all worried that they may not even be able to pay their current employees if there’s another shutdown?
Not really - I’ve found that most agencies expect to be made whole after the shutdowns. I think it may be a factor in that maybe they didn’t want to have open job listings during a shutdown since it would screw up the closing dates/make it impossible for people to apply, but by now I would think anyone delaying a listing would still have put it up on USAJOBS. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Like I tell the complainers around here–“Look, I’m just a typist, the boss told me what to do with this, take it up with him.”
We have a new attendance policy. Fine, since they had apparently stopped having one years ago and people were running roughshod over their schedules, to the point that management had to over-hire just to be sure they had enough people to make the contracted hours. The new one swung the other way: we have to work 90% of our scheduled hours per week, excused absences next week must be requested by EOD Tuesday this week, and sick time counts the same as whimsically taking a day off today to see the Cubs game. Every week we don’t make our 90% earns us a verbal warning, four of them in a rolling 13-week period means we’re automatically fired.
I got a verbal warning for being sick last Friday because I was really sick and took the day off. I told my boss I was playing the odds, that I’m basically healthy and don’t foresee any problems. The reality is that one group stuck in the telemarketing biz is old folk, and old folk ain’t healthy. One of my current group is diabetic and got thrown in the hospital for over a week shortly before this policy went into effect, and without applying for time off. It would be two dings now. Another, “my little test case,” got a stent recently and, because of his health, has been extremely unreliable since. If he doesn’t manage to die before he’s fired the company’s lawyers will find out about this new policy when the lawsuit is filed.
It’s a family company, founded in the '50s, and the only family member who got a modern business education and realized it was no longer 1956 got pushed out for putting on airs and graces. I’m enjoying watching them get dragged into the 1990s. 
Given that I’ve been in this project for five weeks and in that time at least four people have left it, I’m reasonably sure it ain’t me, it’s them (or at least a big chunk of it).
Last item in the what the flying bananas list: we’ve been asked to update a list with the status of our assigned tasks.
Which btw is checked out to the boss, so we can’t do it until he gets back to work and he’s several hours behind.
But the WTFB item is, apparently there are several tasks assigned to me that nobody had told me about. Oh, and all of them are from a circus which is not included in my job title.
On another side, but same job, in the last two days I’ve had three emails from the current agent re. other jobs. I was generally unimpressed with them, but really? You guys don’t even know who is already working for you?
Someone needs to come up with the concept of Administrative Quotient (AQ). The ability to track who works for you, know in what language should your employees/subcontractors/vendors be adressed, and so forth.
I swear, recruiters see my resume and see I work at a sign shop and everything else just goes out the window. The only calls I get are for the position with the other crazy sign guy downstate, the one which I already turned down the offer for. More than a year later, he’s still desperately searching for a designer for that position (looks like nobody was stupid enough to take it). But recruiters, please, I’m a designer. I can design anything print related. I’m not limited to signs only. It says right there on the resume all the different stuff I can do. My portfolio shows the scope. Call me about some other position! I contact you back, tell you about my skillset, have a nice conversation and poof! Never a word from you people again until the next agency comes along with … “so there’s this position for a senior sign designer in…”
Cripes. Legal has “improved” the process for getting a contract approved since the last time I had to do one. Now, every legal contract - even an NDA, which I all I need - has to be approved by a VP. Who are only located in our Virginia offices.
I work in Illinois.
I’ve just been notified by the tracking software that the contract is ready to be signed - and I should print out two copies and take them immediately to the signing officer.
Well! Let me just hop on a plane and get going then. Seriously, there is no secretary in the legal department who could print out two copies of a contract, and instead a highly-paid engineer needs to finagle someone to do this?
On Wednesday, they moved the baler.
On Thursday, it was functional again. And there was much rejoicing!
(I don’t actually know how long it took for them to get the electrical set up for the baler in its new home. I just know that being without our baler for any length of time is seriously sucky. Especially when no one makes a bale at the other baler.)
Other gripe-- there were at least three other people in my department on Wednesday. Why did they all disappear when I needed them? (I was leaving, so I wanted to say “This is X, this is Y”. Someone found and dealt with the stuff I left behind before I came in on Thursday, so it wasn’t the end of the world, but still annoying).
Finally, Boss, I’m concerned about you because you are injured, and what it will mean for us if you need surgery and miss work. I don’t care about having being lectured about proper lifting technique. Also, you being hurt makes me nervous about lifting stuff-- I don’t want to be hurt.
Dear headhunters/recruiters/agents:
If you ask what is my experience in XYZ and I say “zero”, and the profile you have actually distinguishes “required” from “desired” and XYZ is in the “required” part, I am not (repeat: nooooooooot) an appropriate candidate for the position. Even if it wasn’t for the little detail that I’m about as interested in learning XYZ as in becoming a stripteasing funambulist.