Wasn’t that Harpo?
I think you’re right.
I keep having to go to these things and they want us ‘veterans’ to get up on stage and tell an interesting story about work. Uh… I… um… have told them all about the flood and marriages. There is not a lot of exciting stuff that happens that would entertain a group of non programmers.
It’s only exciting to programmers, but never in a good way.
And I MUST keep my sarcasm in check. Very, very hard.
My company has both “The Spark Award” and the “Spirit of Service” award, the difference between which I defy anyone to explain. I’ve received both of them over the years. One, I forget which, was basically because of the three people in my section, one had quit, and the second snapped and went on stress leave (the first of three times she did so before she left for good) and after several weeks of my flying totally solo, I think managers were like “we’d better get this guy a minor bonus before he bails as well.” The other was possibly because almost everyone else in the department had gotten some token citation over the years and it was my turn (The Inanimate Carbon Rod still had to wait for its moment in the sun).
For some reason, when I went up to get my lapel pin and notice that a bonus minus taxes and witholdings would be in my next, or maybe the one after that, pay cycle, I was applauded then shooed back to my seat. Then the next person got up and got to spiel for a while. It didn’t seem like a deliberate slight, but to be fair, I think I’m viewed as That Strange Guy In Building Services and my dark sense of humour isn’t a secret. I’ve idly wondered if somebody thought I’d grab the mic and start with “A guy walks into a talent agent’s office and says ‘Have I got an act for you!’…” or quoting Uncle Duke: “Few things in life are as misunderstood as the playful peyote button. Can I have the first slide, please?” The possibilities are endless as long as nobody lets me near amplification.
A workplace many years back had what they called a “Leadership Award”, that came with a plaque and a cash award. It was supposed to be a big honor, but for some reason always seemed to go to people who worked on horribly mismanaged projects and who had to pull off some miraculous last-minute heroics. One I remember - this was back in the days when proposals had to be printed and submitted on paper - went to a couple of ladies who spent their whole weekend getting the proposal assembled then drove all night to deliver it to the customer, because it was too late to mail it. But the award never went to projects that were well managed, on time and under budget. To me, that’s leadership. (But then, I’m not in management.)
Part of my jack-of-all-trades position used to involve handling phone calls from people when they get stuck in an elevator. The elevator phone used to be right next to my chair, and when it buzzed, I’d get their info, immediately phone the elevator techs on site, and stay on the line until they were released.I should add, at least 80% of the time, the passenger had bumped the button accidentally and there was no entrapment. Of the remainder, 98% were freed within literally a couple of minutes. I dealt with the spectrum of reactions over the years from “No worries, I’m sure this happens and I’m safe.” to “I just soiled myself I’m so terrified.” I literally did hundreds of these over the years.
One day, I’m away at lunch, and my deskmate took an entrapment call. It was one of the latter reactions, a woman who was getting hysterical. My co-worker calmly stayed on the line, and the woman was freed after just a few minutes. The passenger then sent a glowing letter to management about how excellent the service had been, how my co-worker had been so great, yadda yadda, and at the next quarterly company event, my co-worker, who overall throughout her time here probably answered 1% of the elevator entrapment calls, was awarded the Spark Award and a cheque for her excellent performance that day.
I mean, I’m always glad when our office gets a written compliment, but jeez.
My company has an Engineer of the Year award. I haven’t been here long and don’t really know how it gets given though I know there’s a trophy/plaque that goes with it.
What annoys me is they award it in February, but name it with the current year.
So by, like, February 5, the “2024 Engineer of the Year” was announced, and I kind of felt like that set expectations really low for the rest of us…
My rant today is the discovery that my employer messed up my tax forms and I’m missing one, so now I have to scramble to get it filled out before the end of the month. Knowing this company, it’s a tall order. Our HR drone is an absolute moron with zero communication skills (like, acknowledges emails with “k”) and I literally don’t know how to ask payroll anything. Monday’s gonna be fun!
Sounds like my company and service awards. The cutoff to be publicly acknowledged for the year is sometime in February. My anniversary date is in March, so even though my 15-year anniversary was in 2022, it wasn’t actually acknowledged at my location until 2023. (Corporate has upgraded to some kind of system-wide service award catalog, so I was able to pick that out in 2022.)
Probably been covered extensively in this thread (and others) but when you are booking a meeting and I am required to be there, please look at my calendar, I’ve said 100 times that my calendar is up to date but I’m constantly invited to meetings at times that I am unavailable. How hard is this?
This year is my 20-year anniversary at this office; technically it’s 21 years, but I was a temp for the first many months, and only officially got on the books in February of 2004. As such, I get an extra week of paid vacation this year and a bonus check. Neither of which are awarded until the third quarter. “Congratulations on your Twenty Years and Seven Months anniversary! You didn’t need that money earlier, did you?” I also have a limited number of vacation days I can carry over into the next year, no idea if I can take the extra week in 2025 or if I’ve got to take incredibly inconvenient time off in the fall this year.
It’s like my school district. Longevity awards go out in May to recognize people at the end of the school year so do you get your 5/10/15/20/&c. pin in May? Nope because you haven’t completed your contract year so you’re at 4 yrs 10 mos. You actually get your 5 year pin (as an example) at the end of your sixth school year.
I tried to get on a zoom meeting today and kept getting an error. Turns out the meeting date was changed. Why? Because I hadn’t replied to the invite. The meeting invite was sent yesterday (Sunday) for a 10:00 am Monday meeting. Yeah, I don’t work on Sunday so you all can suck it.
Man, do I hate that shit. Everybody at my job works unconventional hours/days off with compressed work schedules. Instead of scheduling meetings at least a week in advance (and almost all of our meetings could logistically be scheduled at least a week in advance if not earlier), it’s frequently a one day notice issued on a day one or more people are off. Absolutely maddening.
Someone has called and left a message on my work phone. It’s never good when that happens. No one I know ever calls. It almost always means someone from the public is trying to get some information and they think I can help. I have a ton of work to do and won’t really get a break for the next few months, so I don’t want anything else on my plate.
But the damn light is going to blink at me until I get the courage to press the button and see what hell awaits.
Ugh
I bet it’s “Has your automobile warranty expired?”
Turned out to be someone replying to an email with a phone call; asking me to call them back; but not leaving a phone number 
I replied with another email.
Speaking of phone etiquette…far too many people with whom I have to deal on the phone at work have taken up the habit of letting my call go to voicemail, then calling me back while I’m in the middle of leaving them a message. Sweet jeebus, you know you’ve got VM set up, take a wild guess that person whose number you see there is leaving gorram voicemail!
Almost as good. “Hey, I saw you called a minute ago?” “Yeah, did you get my message?” “No, what was it?” So you’d like me to monologue it again? Go listen to your VM and then call me back, dingus.
Fuck that. If I don’t answer, don’t leave a VM, send a text like a civilized person. Accessing a VM is a pain in the ass - dial the VM system, enter my PIN which I can’t remember since I never check my voicemail, listen to the voice menu for accessing your message, and then listen, skip, and delete any old messages that happen to be recorded before I get to your message. Hell, VM is a technology that makes FAX machines seem modern in comparison.
But reading a text? Quick and easy.
How odd. I hear my voice mails with one push of one button.
I mostly get voice mails at work. The general public is not getting my cell phone number.
The public can leave a text, and that’s what I ask them to do on my outgoing message. Notice, people, I do NOT instruct you to “Take as long as you’d like, I’ve got nothing better to do than listen to you hem and haw until you decide how to phrase your problem and then dither and don’t address what you want me to do about it… and don’t forget to finally speed up but then rush at the end so you leave an unintelligible callback number! And thanks for calling, have a great day!”