Public Service Announcement: When you bring your laptop home on Friday so you can work remotely on Monday remember to bring the cord so you can plug it in. 
something similar happened to me while I worked for the military–some idiot sent a “personal” email accidentally (I hope) but copied EVERYBODY, so of course people replied to all; system shut down for hours!
Reminds me of the “I Love You” virus around 2000. How many mail systems did that kill?
New accounting software at work which means a new expense system (called Ramp). It’s got some growing pains but seems like it should be a step up from our old way. The old way was making copies of our receipts and filling out an excel form, so it definitely needed updated.
However, I was trying out the new mileage reimbursement yesterday and came across a bit of an issue. The new software wants me to link my banking info for payments. And it uses this third party app called Teller. And Teller wants my user name and password to my banking app. Uh, not just no, but FUCK NO! What clueless fuckhead thinks that is a good idea?
Suspicious much? I’d be asking some very pointed questions about whether that’s actually the legit software.
I was literally the only person in my department that came into the office and I just lost my job.
I feel sad you lost your job. What type of business was it? Maybe it’s a trend?
That happened to me (with the added demoralization of being fired for a clearly-made-up excuse, and the stress of a brand new baby and house).
But…
I ended up with a job that was 500% better!
Which I never would have found if I’d continued to be the faithful labradoodle at a company that didn’t value me.
I work with an idiot. Yesterday I was eating lunch at my desk, thinking about the afternoon classes, and the asshat decides it’s the perfect time to start watching some YouTube video of someone talking. Without earphones, of course.
so I ask him what he’s watching, and he thinks I’m interested rather than realize it’s a hint to turn the damn thing off. Of course, he starts to talk about it, while still watching, so I turn to direct communication.
“No, I mean please turn it off or use headphones.”
Our HVAC system sucks.
So far our options are 80F or 65F. No in between. Today the outside temp got above 50F so the AC turned on even though the offices are in the mid 60’s.
The warmest the offices get is overnight when no one is here. We thought maybe there was an am/pm switch somewhere that was wrong.
We have had contractors in literally dozens of times over the last year trying to figure it out. No luck.
People have space heaters and blankets. It’s ridiculous.
Decent bet the Fire Marshal would throw a fit if they ever visited. Every locale is different, but as a general matter those are prohibited in office spaces.
Our office energy management system can sniff out space heaters pretty reliably. Anyone who has brought one in has been busted right away (within hours). Don’t know how that works, but I’m pretty sure it’s not by other people reporting them.
Someone from building management and another from safety will usually be around by mid-morning as soon as someone plugs one in.
Our office is kept at 68 in winter and 72 in summer (to accommodate how people dress) Apparently 68 is too cold for some people. People who don’t wear trousers, mostly.
There have been days when the outside temp is below zero (F) when the workstations at the glass windows (I have one) can get chilly, because the glass gets cold. But I’m usually dressed in a thick sweater on those days. It’s the silk blouse wearers who are getting uncomfortably cold.
Maybe I don’t appreciate the sartorial challenges women face enough.
I’m impressed that there are places that still prohibit space heaters! They’re a-OK where I work, as long as they’re from the approved list. There are so many running on my side of the building that they screw with the ambient temperature, resulting in occasions when the A/C will start blasting in the winter.
It got warm enough here today that the A/C should have cycled on, but it didn’t. I guess someone’s reprogrammed the thing. It got up to 76º in my office this afternoon.
Seems like your company will be in a whole lot of hot water concerning liabilities in the future. I wonder what the legal or compliance Department would have to say about that.
Eons ago my late wife took a part time gig at a semi-shady company. Legit industry, but the owner / operator just exuded sleaze.
They wanted to use direct deposit the usual USA way, which doesn’t involve your banking login. But does authorize withdrawals as well as deposits. Ostensibly to correct mistakes. Or correct “mistakes”.
We opened a free checking account at a nearby bank, gave the sleazeball that account’s info, and as soon as each paycheck hit, we transferred the money to our “real” checking account. Any attempt at withdrawal would bounce.
We never had a problem with them pulling anything other than slow-paying, but I was glad we had built that firewall into our process.
If I was @Kelevra I’d try that same tactic here.
Our policy is that anything that draws significant power (heater, coffee maker, etc.) can’t be plugged into an extension cord or power strip - it must be plugged directly into a building outlet. The problem is that our building is really old, and building outlets are few and far between in our little cubicle farm.
Our cubicles have outlets, but unfortunately the building manager says cubical outlets are considered extension cords.
We have a communal coffeemaker. The closest building outlet is about 20 feet away, but we couldn’t move it closer to the outlet. So I took the coffeemaker home, cut off the plug, and spliced a 25 foot extension cord to it using solder and heat shrink tubing. Works great. The building manager seemed somewhat perturbed by it when he saw it, though. I explained that it was not an extension cord, since an extension cord (by definition) has a connector at each end. He just rolled his eyes and left. Thankfully he hasn’t made an issue of it.
There are space heaters where you could touch the glowing red heating elements, which are obviously a danger in terms of clothing and paper catching fire.
But the modern ones with a fan and no glowing hot exposed surface draw enough power that they exceed the rating of the wiring at your workstation, never mind that some people plug them into extension cords because there are only two outlets per workstation and they are on top of the desk. You have to snake the heater cord between workstations where there is a triangular space (otherwise the desk surface is flush with the back “wall” that separates your workstation from the one across from you). And of course the heater cords are short so they cannot reach the desktop level outlets. Hence extension cords or strips.
Exactly what I did.
So the new software asked for a routing and account number for a different process. Accounting looked into my complaints and said to use that method. I provided an account that I use for business expenses which generally has $100 in it. Not giving anyone access to anything else.
It still makes me wonder what is going on with this software. To get reimbursed for mileage traveled it wanted my username and password. To get reimbursed for cell phone costs it wanted the routing and account number. It’s from Quickbooks so it’s not some fly-by-night company.
That’s the type we have at work. I have no idea how they’re powered at the cube farm, but everywhere else they have to be plugged directly into a wall outlet. They’re also supposed to be at least 3’ away from walls and furnishings, but I can only think of one meeting that requirement.
As I mentioned in my previous post, we are not allowed to plug a heater into our cubicle outlets, since these outlets are considered “extension cords.”
But lots of people do it anyway, including me.
A couple Mondays ago (23-Feb-26) it was really cold. I was working from home that day, but the guy in the cubicle next to me went in. He said it was really cold in our little cubicle farm, so he turned on his heater. It was still too cold, so he borrowed my heater and plugged it in, too. And then everything powered off, including his computer. He went around looking for the circuit breaker box that powers our little cubicle farm, but couldn’t find it. He then had to go to the building manager, and he sheepishly asked him if he could reset the circuit breaker. He was not happy, lol, and chastised him for using the heaters.
(FYI, when I use the heater, I use it on the low power setting, out of fear of tripping the breaker and getting into trouble.)