OK, this is brilliant. You have a way with words, Steve MB. Thanks for the best laugh I have had in days.
The solution is obvious: Thunderdome.
I’ll send you my bill.
This was awesome! I love elegant solutions. (See previous recommendation.)
Where are the minutes from yesterday’s meeting where they were deciding which way the different “stuff to be decided” will have to be set, eh?
Messing up with the seconds or something, apparently 
Well, off to continue my online coursework, since there are no instructions…
I’m growing increasingly convinced that people are lazy and just want to be spoon-fed, without having to do any work or make any effort.
Example #1) Reviewed / edited a document sent to us from a third party, via a co-worker acting as our point-person for the transaction. After my final edits were submitted and approved, I receive another e-mail from the point-person, asking me to put our company’s name in the one “blank space” at the top. In the time it took this person to open a new message, type the request, and send it, they could’ve made the few keystrokes to “complete” the Word document. Also, this person did not know if I was busy, so if I was on another project, this “passing of the buck” could’ve led to unnecessary delays.
Example #2) Co-worker asked me to send a template that I’ve crafted for a document, so he can forward it on to a third party, despite the fact that a) I’ve sent it to him numerous times the past few weeks (for various transactions), and that I’ve (unsolicited) sent him a copy of the document, with the note “for future reference and your convenience,” so he wouldn’t have to reach out to me whenever he needed it in the future.
Oh, where do I start?
Hours are being cut to the bone. TPTB doesn’t want to hire another PT person for our department, so they decide to cut another 20 hours out of our budget, which means we’ll be losing yet another PT person (we’ve already lost 2 since after New Year’s). Their reason? “You don’t need that many people, all of you just need to move faster.”
Two veteran people are being taken off Sundays, which are time-and-a-half here. They’re both going to give their 2-week notices, as those Sunday hours make a sizable chunk of their paychecks. That leaves 3 of us working on our busiest day of the week.
There’s a grid I’m supposed to follow as to what I should produce on which days, the idea being that I overproduce 2-3 days/week so I won’t have to produce every day. Why is that? So I can “do something else”, that “something else” being what our PT people would do. I get the gist of that, but really, we’re the only store in the district that’s made any money since the buyout because we’ve got the heaviest volume…and you only want me to produce 2-3 days/week???*
We’ve already had a number of walkouts. One of them was my old manager. I wasn’t there that day, but I’ve been told that he made a spectacular scene about not being a slave and therefore refusing to work on a “slave ship”.
Needless to say there is no morale. All of us drag ourselves in there and brace ourselves for the next “slave” directive. And yes, I’m actively looking for another job but not having much luck 
And to add to my earlier post, this just happened:
Example #3) A co-worker called me over to his desk because he couldn’t figure out why the Excel spreadsheet he was typing in was doing a bunch of weird symbols. I had to show him how to change the font from “Webdings” to the standard one.
It’s like people don’t want to learn or try.
Bossette apparently thinks we work for The Cult (those who are in my line of work know which company I mean).
She’s one of their graduates, still working third-party; on the day we met she complained about never having had one day of vacation since she started in consulting and met a 4-voices chorus from the self-employed saying “oh, I just tell the agents that I’m not available.” “:eek: Not available?” “Yep, and if they insist I tell them to fuck off.” high fives all around while she stared openmouthed
She wants slides for everything. We have a “Q&A” session, she wants slides:
- opening slide,
- topics,
- questions people will ask (ok dear, while I do read minds it’s actually only one: I can read my mother’s mind because I’ve known her for almost 50 years. I don’t know what questions will the users ask in a Q&A),
- relevant processes (but can’t be Visios),
- Many many thanks.
I thought that I’d seen all the different ways that people could fail at filling out applications. I was wrong. A lady comes in today to fill out an application. She put down her name, phone number and “anytime” for the “When is the best time to contact you?” question. Then she handed the application back in, said “I’ll wait for your call!” and walked out.
Don’t bother, honey. Your application went straight to the bottom File 13.
I’m sorry, I’m not following why this is so very horrible. Is it because “any time” should have been two words? Is it because, even if she is always available, she should have specified a time anyway? Is it because the rest of the application was empty (not clear from the anecdote)? Is it because of what she said when she left?
Thank heavens I am retired and don’t have to worry about this stuff any more, clearly I would not make it in today’s job market.
Maybe that’s all she put on the application?
My company even came up with a new wrinkle for this. We use a 1 to 5 scale
5 = Transformed the company by working across many departments
4 = Exceeds Expectations
3 = Meets Expectations
2 = Needs Improvement
1= You suck
Basically only executives or someone assigned almost full time to a “Special Project” can get a 5 the way the full definition is written.
A 2 has to be on a formal performance improvement plan (documented improvement or get fired), so a 1 is someone who should have already been fired, thus no manager would give a 1.
So most people are either a 3 or 4, and of course only a certain percentage of 4’s can be given.
Fairly standard, but…
We have a bonus system based on company performance 0%-14% based on the company financial results and now the following also applies
5 = 150% bonus multiplier
4 = 125% bonus multiplier
3 = 100% bonus multiplier
2 = 50% bonus multiplier
1 = no bonus
Then they really let Catbert do his thing.
If you get rated a 4 then for next year your expectations are raised making it harder to Exceed Expectations and get a 4.
Added bonus, they rolled this out in the middle of the year and announced they were going to use the new rating criteria for the current year evaluations, but not the bonus multipliers. So when I got my 4, I got no bonus multiplier and increased expectations for next year.
Was asked to review and edit some Termination Agreements earlier this week. It’s not a big deal, because I’ve done them in the past.
Only difference is, this is the first one I’ve reviewed where the employee didn’t know they were being terminated. As such, I was told to keep this strictly confidential.
And did I mention they work 20 feet from me?
So, since my boss was gone and people have a habit of walking up to my desk and reading my screen, I decided to work from home the rest of that afternoon.
The next day, I wasn’t done, but I knew I had to at least show up to the office. Boss was there, and I mention that I’ll need to work remotely after lunch, and that while I can’t tell him why, he’ll understand next week. (They are pulling the trigger on Friday)
So now I have the double-awkwardness of conversing with someone who doesn’t know they will be fired (and listening to them make plans to do things with co-workers after work next week, discuss fairly large purchases they plan on making, etc.) and dealing with a boss who (while I feel trusts me) would be perfectly justified in thinking I was being shady and trying to skip work earlier this week with my vague project. I made a point to send a few messages throughout the afternoon on our office’s IM program, just so he knew I was at my computer. Also, on our “friends list” with the IM program, you can tell if someone has gone idle. I made sure that my icon never turned yellow.
It’s nice being a part of the inner circle (only four people know), but it definitely can add to stress & make things uncomfortable.
It’s a four-page application. Much more information is required.
When I was in the Air Force, our reviews were graded on a scale of 1-horrible to 10-walks on water. NOBODY got below a 9 unless they were about to be court martialed. An 8 pretty much would ruin your career.
My work day…
Log onto workstation
Log onto VPN
.Remote to server. Logon.
…Remote to server. Logon.
…Remote to server. Logon.
…Remote to server. Optional depending on what I’m doing. Logon.
Load application. Save frequently.
Work until one of the links disconnects.
Start over
Then your complaint was nearly as critically incomplete as the application. If you want us to join in your contumely, clarity is critical. Just sayin’.
I hated the “anytime” answer when getting a woman’s phone number that I was trying to date. lol
What the hell you mean anytime?
Most of us are intelligent and experienced enough to recognize that a name and phone number on an application isn’t sufficient.
Mini-rant the first:
My workplace has been labeled the Model Store for some special project. This means we worked our butts off on the project for weeks, and now have to maintain this abnormally pristine condition for weeks/months of “In-Law Visits” as my boss referred to them. This isn’t a big deal, on the one hand. On the other, each visit increases my boss’s stress, which increases mine. And some of the expectations we’ve had to meet are just stupid.
Mini-rant the second:
the newest incentive program is basically a sticker chart for grown-ups. I have one sticker (despite everyone telling me I’m awesome), while some people (Boss) have eight or nine.
Mini-rant the third:
Vacation Rosters were posted today. Already most of the summer has been claimed. This is not shocking-- fairly large department, if everyone grabs one and only one “Summer” week, we’ll probably still run out (and Boss grabbed more than one). But it’s frustrating when your family can’t get its act together, so you don’t know which week to sign up for.
Your post was not adequate to understand that that was the only thing she wrote. Maybe you should go back and look at it with a fresh eye?