A couple coworkers are meeting new management and wondering why they’re not being taken seriously. It might have to do with looking like hobos. Yes, we have jobs where we work with animals and it can get messy. But unstained and untorn clothing can be had from a shop right down the street for a couple bucks.
It’s hard to look a someone wearing clothed 2 sizes too big with torn shoulders and stains all down the front, like they know what they’re talking about. They look like they slept in a gutter.
No one’s looking for fashion mavens, here. Just, you know, presentable.
Dear high-strung coworker,
Yes, I understand that learning new software is frustrating and finding out you did it wrong is depressing… but! If you READ THE BASICS MANUAL I WROTE, it will be much, much easier.
If you slow down, pay attention to what you are doing and shut up while I explain it, it will be much, much easier.
If you document your issues instead of screaming (via email) “IT’S BROKEN FIX IT NOW!” you will get a more favorable response from us and it will be much, much easier.
If your drawing is so screwed up that my number 1 suggestion is to delete it and start all over again, do not whine how it will take TWO DAYS! to redo it when I know for a fact that if it takes longer than 3 hours you probably need more training. (And 3 hours is generous.)
Also, do not imply that I have no direct experience with this software when I worked on production drawings for a year and a half and helped implement some of the changes that have actually improved the product from where it was 2 years ago. As well as having just this past month rewritten the handbook and posted it to the company-wide network for reference.
Otherwise I am going to continue to consider you a douchbag and impossible to work with and continue to cc my boss, your boss and our chief engineer whenever you have an issue.
The software is not perfect, we know that. The software works differently than the in-house proprietary software you are used to, we know that. Just remember that you weren’t born knowing the old software and you will go through the same growing pains with the new.
JUST FUCKIN’ LET ME HELP YOU SUCCEED YOU JACKASS!
I feel better now.
And speaking of fashion SDT, the company just implemented a jeans all the time policy. There are some happy engineers up in this joint.
I get really tired of people whining that “There’s no manual on how to do this!” when they’re on OUR web page, which has incredibly in-depth how-to manuals to processes linked on the same fucking page.
The one earlier today, she needed help walking through an access process that we don’t control or support. However, one of my co-workers wrote an excellent step-by-step manual about this process complete with screen shots of everything and notes on what needs to be filled out, where. Why? Because people are still going to call us about it even when it isn’t our stuff.
The link to that is right in front of her eyes, but “WAAAA!!! YOU NO MANUAL!!!”
Me: “The manual is right there. Please give it a try. Have a great day!” <click>
I really need to keep a Word doc open on my desktop so I can just copy/paste standard responses and links to the online training.
“Hi! Please read the XXXX Basics document and then get back to me if you still continue to have problems.”
“I’m sorry this is so frustrating for you. Please read the How To XXXXX document.”
But I’m pretty sure someone would notice that I wasn’t personalizing my responses.
I like helping people, but first they gotta help themselves by referring to the documentation.
I’m starting to think my supervisor is either trying to force me to quit, or put me so far behind in my work that he could justify letting me go for performance reasons.
He hands off a lot of his work to subordinates. Nothing too unusual about this when you consider that we’re short one engineer right now (and we also have one who still hasn’t “learned the ropes” enough yet to help with the bigger items). Got one today that was an emergency – customer had paid big bucks to have their items ship today. I had the test procedure completed this morning, and testing was kind enough to let me know the results by mid-afternoon so I could prepare the report and be ready to sign off the job package when it hit my desk this afternoon. Job package hits my desk at about 4:20 this afternoon, and – there are two lot numbers listed. My report only covered one. Now this is a massive problem, because my company conducts very rigorous testing…i.e., at least one test per lot code. No one – not testing, not the inspector who handed me the job package, and not my supervisor – had bothered to inform me about the extra lot code. :mad:
My company actually has a procedure in place to deal with a situation like this in the event it’s not possible to perform an extra test – we can thoroughly research and document samples from each lot code to show their similarity (the best case for this is when you can prove the items from the two lots were made within days of each other – there’s little chance the manufacturer would have had time to implement a massive design change so quickly). I went to my manager’s office to request a camera so I could begin this process; as I was explaining why I needed the camera, my supervisor wanders in with an absolute shit-eating grin on his face. “Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the extra lot code.” :mad:
Yeah, kind of like he “forgot” to mention that the test results for another part he assigned to me last week were saved to some folder on the server, leaving me to think that I needed to wait until the job package showed up to review the final results and complete the report?
Spoken like a true mentor. For me, he starts on a different program Monday, so he’s somebody else’s problem. He, at first, was angry that I had suggested to his big sister that he, like me, would benefit from Ritalin, but he’s coming around.
Notepad uses fewer resources. Neither is available to me, so I copy and paste from a draft email.
I have a colleague who, seemingly, writes and self-publishes a crappy book about once a week. He’s a relentless self-promoter and the department is slathered with flyers promoting his work and “appearances.” Of late he’s been copying these flyers and putting them in our mailboxes with little reminders to come see him read his schlock-of-the-week at the City of Butt Fuck Egypt Library.
He’s started tacking his crap on a bulletin board reserved for honoring student achievements, covering up or removing bona fide material to make space for his announcements. I’m hatching an evil plan . . .
Judy from the doctor’s office calls into their patient’s insurance company on a Friday afternoon to request prior authorization for inpatient surgery the patient is having Monday morning. Before I enter her request I tell her that it can take up to 14 days for this to request to be processed, but I can file this as an expedited request and that timeframe would be 72 hrs (also I’d be able transfer her to a clinical nurse-reviewer). She twice refuses, and insists she doesn’t want this expedited because it’s elective surgery. :rolleyes: Fine, it’s not really my problem. Unless I’m the one that get’s the call from the hospital Monday morning because the patient’s already there and they won’t do the surgery without the authorization. I may just be a cog in the medical-insurance complex, but hey at least I tried.
Hey co-workers? You all have phones on your desks, right? And the phones work, right? So why the holy hell am I usually the only one signed in to take phone calls? And no, signing in to the phones and then putting yourself on “unavailable” doesn’t count.
I complain to my boss, and she sends around an email to the effect of “Let’s everyone be sure to sign in, mmmkay?”
Everyone signs in for maybe a day or so and then it’s back to just me again. Two days last week I was the only one taking phone calls. I ask the rest of the team to please sign in because there are calls holding. Nothing. One chick even tells me she’s too busy to take outside calls. Internal people who are supposed to call me direct are pissed because I’m always tied up on outside calls. I sent boss-lady an email Friday saying “check the phone records”. We’ll see what happens.
I work for a multinational IT company which has pretty good policies in general. Stuff like “work from home”, “what to do when you get a required meeting outside of normal work hours” (wfh and compensate within the same week), etc. are covered internationally and in ways that Make Sense ™.
Our local HR Manager’s views on what is and is not work and on worker-employer relations are stuck in the 19th century. He got angry when I decided to take advantage of the yearly checkup offered as part of our required medical coverage (missing two hours, you see - getting the same checkup through a personal doctor would have required me to miss a lot more work); he thinks that anybody who isn’t typing isn’t working, and that meetings held in the break room aren’t meetings (several of our most effective team leads like to start strategic meetings with the sentence “let’s go get coffee”). According to him and to “policies” which are actually not in writing anywhere and anyway would not be legal (no approval by the workers’ reps, as we don’t have workers’ reps, which btw is illegal), we have to ask for individual and explicit permission any time we’re expected to do any work outside of regular hours.
I’m channeling Miss Piggy, Tweety Bird and Nabiki Tendo like a mofo. HR Dude’s email indicating I need my manager’s permission to attend a mandatory meeting has been forwarded to said manager with my most innocent look. I’m so innocent I wouldn’t be surprised if coworkers ask me to shut off the blinding halo.
Last week, I told the boss I needed work. I get in 60-90 minutes before he does (his hours are pretty fluid, I like to stick to a schedule.) I’ve been here 2 hours now and I’ve had nothing to do. When he finally showed up 30 minutes ago, I reminded him I need work. I’m still waiting.
Thank goodness for internet access, or I’d have fallen asleep by now.
And before someone pipes in with “Show some initiative, find something to do” - I’ve been here less than 3 months and I’m not privy to the priorities or the projects in work. I’m given a task that may take a few hours or a few days, and when it’s done, I ask for another. I am peon, here me whine… At least it pays well.
Don’t come to my desk at 9AM on a Monday and cop an attitude with me because I can’t immediately explain notes written on a drawing by an engineer who doesn’t work here anymore. Also, as I’m sitting here writing out an interpretation of this drawing for you, it occurs to me that “ability to read and understand engineering drawings” is part of your job description. >.<
My supervisor is really good at emailing me to ask me to do something, not telling me she wants it done right away, then freaking out when I don’t make that my top priority. :rolleyes: Maybe she thinks I sit around twiddling my thumbs, waiting to get an email from her so I can jump into action (in reality, I have too much to do, and I should have gotten a promotion and a raise a while ago, but that’s not gonna happen).
I’m tired of this generation gap in my department.
Yeah, OK, I get it, young’uns. I get that you “don’t want to work that hard” and “you don’t want to become like me or New Manager”. That doesn’t burn me as much as pissing off everybody by not doing your assigned work because “I don’t want to work that hard”.
I’ve been in this business 25+ years. I’ve seen this time and again, all ages across the board. However, in past years I’ve had managers who’ve known how to light fires under asses. Our current manager is stymied with that so you keep steamrolling right over her.
The last time we had a manager browbeat you into moving your ass you all went up to HR and complained about meanness and how scared you were that god forbid SOMEBODY YELLED AT ME.
Fuck you all. Go get another fucking job then. Oh, that’s right…there are no other jobs in this area. Meanwhile I’m crippling myself cleaning up after you and I’m no longer afraid of audibly resenting it. And NOW, finally, I understand what makes a “departmental bitch”, something which I never aspired to.
Reminds me of a young woman I worked with 16 years ago. Didn’t do a lot of work, regularly got yelled at by the manager for screwing off and standing around talking. Was mad she wasn’t getting promoted. Boss told her in front of everyone (when she was standing around chatting) that she wasn’t getting promoted unless she did the work. After he walked away, she angrily muttered about actually working if she was given more interesting work to do.
My response: “You’re not getting promoted until you can prove that you can do this job. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll get you a box.”
One of our young’uns was a supervisor for a now-closed chain franchise. I would’ve thought that she, out of all of them, would show some initiative and energy given her experience. Nope, quite the opposite. The minute our manager remarked that she showed promise in a particular area, the young’un decided to do a shitty job with it time and again. I had to do over everything. We trained her for something else, she did a great job, then decided to fuck up everything.
That’s just one example. There’s another one – a shift leader – who decided to rewrite the rules to her liking. She was caught by upper management who didn’t bat an eye “because we need their help so we can’t keep writing them up or they’ll leave.”
Which, therein, is the issue.
Meanwhile I just found out I need a knee replacement. People with replacements rarely return to my line of work. I shouldn’t care but I do.
Dang it, supervisor, I TOLD you a week ago that, my presence on the Overtime Desired List notwithstanding, I am not able to give up either of my days off NEXT week. You assured me that my needs would be accommodated.
Then you flew off to Oklahoma for training, and handed off to a substitute supervisor, who, while competent and easy-going enough, does need to have information passed down.
Last night, I reported for a shift on what would have been a day off, and saw that next week’s schedule has been posted. I was NOT happy to see myself slated to work a six-day week.
My fault, I suppose. From now on, I notify you in writing, and copy the chief steward. Man, the guy you replaced five months ago spoiled me.
Missed the edit window: BTW, next Monday night, I AM picking my friend up at the airport; and next Tuesday I AM driving him to the jazz concert he’s producing.
At least it pays well.