Completely get this. I’m a guy, and give respect to women I work with no matter what they look like. But, I can see that if you’re a tall & muscular woman you’ll definitely get more respect. No offense, but your description of yourself reminds me of a female transit worker I saw on the train a while back - she was coming around and making sure no one was “acting up” (since the train I take can get rowdy at times). She was tall, big (not fat, just big) and essentially built like a brick shit-house - very imposing…but in a good way 
You’re right that forced socialization can be a PITA. I tend not to participate unless work is paying for it in some way. I rarely turn down free food, for instance, since it means someone else has to cook it and clean up after it. These days I have the excuse of “I have an almost 2 hour commute, I gotta go now.”
I just disagree that coworkers aren’t friends. They don’t start out that way, it’s true, and most never will be. But some will. My very best friend of more than 20 years I met because of a job. We found out we had a lot in common, starting with a sense of humor and love of Monty Python, and we never looked back.
Oh, lordy, I just “not all ” at you. Sorry!
(But it’s true, dagnabbit. NOT all . )
There’s a game which will let me retrieve my old account if I ask nicely and remember my full name.
Minus one letter.
Because the “full name” field happens to be one space shorter than my full name. If I enter my actual full name, it gets rejected because the two strings don’t match exactly :smack:
Speaking with my current boss, who’s inherited a bloody mess of a project from some “super good, super efficient” super my ass is more efficient than that jerk:
Boss: “what I don’t understand is why do you hear so many horror stories about SAP projects going over budget, over time, and ending up completely insatisfactory.”
Me: “oh, it all goes together.”
Boss: 
Me: “OK, this thing, you can say ‘I’ve paid a ton for it and I’m going to learn how to use every piece and corner of it before I spend a penny on putting patches’, or you can say ‘SAP schnapp. I wanna do what I wanna do how I wanna do it; as soon as I can’t find whatever on the first try, I’m going to ask for a programmer to make what I want, and hell yeah I want it now.’
The second type spends a metric ton of additional money and time and, since every Joe, Jane and Johnny wants a different thing, ends up being unsatisfying anyway.”
Boss: “Oh. I fear we’re the second type.”
I’d say you are, boss. And it’s not just this project; from what I’ve seen, it’s a company-wide thing. Having my contract be only seven weeks “to see if it’s a good fit” is now looking really fine.
This is kinda more funny than a rant, really, but…
I’m working part time cleaning holiday cottages; there’s about 10 cleaners, maybe 30 cottages on site, of various sizes from dinky one bedroom ones to great 6 bedroom 4 bath things. Basically they give us a list of which places we’re cleaning today, together with (usually) one partner, and we work until we’re done, then check if anyone else is behind on their list, helping if necessary. When you reckon you’ve done, sign out. There’s a quick check that you’ve actually cleaned, but no-one checks how dirty it is before, if one was filthy and took extra time, that’s OK, you get paid for the hours.
Though the owners- it’s a family business- do very little breathing down our necks, it has widely been noticed that one pair of cleaners, who are both pretty new and regularly work together, are almost always the last to finish; one’s a ditzy pushover who waits to be told what to do, but then gets on with it, the other’s the real issue. Sometimes she basically waits for everyone else to pile in and help, leaving the bits she doesn’t want to do until reinforcements arrive, at which point she sits down and watches, while complaining about all the wooork she’s had to do. This is not making her popular. Words have been said to the bosses, and the two have duly been told that they really should be taking about 2 hours to clean one house, on average, as they’ve been running at over 3. This was a week ago.
Last week, they got given a list which comprised the two dinky cottages and one mid sized one. Everyone else has 3 mid/large ones. Everyone else is in cottage #2, they are not. Most of us are starting #3, they are just going into #2. Eventually another cleaner went round to find out how the hell 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms 2 kitchens had taken longer than the 6 bed 4 bath 2 kitchens all the other pairs had done in the same time, to find the usual suspect sitting there messing about on her phone, having clearly done nothing in the half hour she’d been in there. “Oh no” she said, “We’re not being lazy, [owner] said we should take 2 hours per cottage, so we are!”
Yup, she’d managed to reinterpret the ‘hurry up’ talk as ‘woah! slow down!’ :smack:
Dear Co-Worker,
Maybe it’s my fault. When a mutual co-worker asked if I could help her out with a certain project, I gladly agreed to do so, both because I really like her, and she helped get me situated and was a good resource for when I was getting started here. One of the skills in my wheelhouse if figuring out ways to efficiently complete tasks and I was able to do something in 5 minutes, where she’d been working on it for hours (not a criticism of her; it just happens that we approach things differently, and I’d done similar tasks in the past).
I did not know that she was working on a project with you, and that you’d become the new liaison for the project. What was initially a one-time thing has now made me the official “go-to” person for all things related to this project. I wouldn’t even mind it if it was her doing the requesting, because I know she gives credit where it is due, when it comes to relaying information to the higher-ups.
However, you are starting to abuse my generosity. It’s now come to the point where I feel like I’m essentially doing part of your job. Whenever anything comes up related to the matter, you automatically turn to me and expect me to drop what I’m doing to complete your task. “Oh, well [female co-worker] said you’re so good at it, I knew you could do it fast,” while true, does not make up for the fact that I’m still doing your job.
If you were swamped, that’d be one thing, but [female co-worker] has said, in not so many words, that you disappear for hours at a time, come in late, leave early, etc. I know she’s extremely frustrated with you, but far too nice to say anything.
You sent me an e-mail this morning, asking me to do another task for the project, and I replied back 15 minutes later, letting you know that it was done and (jokingly) apologizing for the delay.
You replied that it wasn’t a problem, but that you need me to make one minor change in the Word document.
I counted the keystrokes that it would take to make the change. 9. In the time it took you to send that e-mail, you could’ve made the change yourself and it wouldn’t have mattered to me at all, since I’m not keeping a version of the document on my computer, nor will I ever need to use it. That being said, despite this showing exactly how lazy you are, I still went in to try to make the change.
But wait, you currently have the document open on the Shared drive, so I can’t access it. Sure, I could make another version and put it in the folder, but I don’t have enough faith in you to choose the right one, especially since the file has to have a specific name, and if you can’t be bothered to make a small change in a document, I certainly doubt your ability / willingness to change a file name and delete an outdated, inaccurate version.
I sent you an e-mail, letting you know that I can’t edit it until you close the file, but you’ve disappeared (once again) and while I saw you at your desk earlier, you’ve either ignored or haven’t gotten around to my e-mail to do the simple task of closing the window, so I can (once again) do your job.
I’m all about being a team player, and I know that our boss (and subsequent higher-ups) care more about the job being done, than who does it, but this is becoming ridiculous.
Conversation from today (details changed, but the essentials are in place).
Co-worker: On this slide you sent out, why did you write down “4” here?
CoW: 4 isn’t right.
Me: You told me 4.
CoW: What does 4 mean?
Me: I asked you ‘how many widgets are there?’ and you said ‘4.’
CoW: I’m confused.
Me: Here’s the email (showed it to her) See, “There are 4 widgets.”
CoW: What’s a widget?
Me: Those things that you were working on.
CoW: I don’t know what a widget is.
Me: (shows her an earlier email) “I am refining widgets.” What did you mean in the email?
CoW: So a widget is a whatchamacallit?
Me: Is that what you meant when you said “widget”?
CoW: No, I meant widget. Whatchamacallits are different.
Me: Ok then. So yes, on the slide, it means 4 widgets.
That seemed to make her happy.
I have no idea what the conversation was about.
Just reading that made my head hurt. Can’t imagine experiencing it.
This isn’t that much of a rant.
We’ve been having “pop-up” style restaurants setting up on the public floor of our office building. It’s great - hot fresh food from various restaurants, a new one every day.
One of my bosses is intrigued and asked about it. I told her how to find it on the net, and see which restaurant will be in and how to see their menu. I also specified the hours: 11:30 to 1:30 every day.
She tried to go today, but she had waited until 1:31 to leave, and came back all bitchy about the whole setup. She’s notoriously late to everything, so I wasn’t surprised she didn’t make it on time.
Oh, well. So she had to walk to find some other restaurant still serving lunch. It didn’t look half as good as our pop-up’s grilled Italian paninis that I had because I LEFT AT NOON AND THEY WERE OPEN WITH PLENTY OF FOOD.
We will be given quota at the end of the week. We are degreed professionals working on complex files to fulfill regulatory requirements, and we will be monitored like factory line workers (yes, I’ve done that, and that is why I got a degree).
We have also been told that turn over is a problem, and we all have to do our part to minimize it. My mind keeps worrying at that, like it should make some kind of sense.
There’s an abyss between “what’s important is getting the job done, pitching in is great and so is knowing when to ask for help” and “it doesn’t matter who actually did the job, the person to whom it got assigned gets the credit.” Which side do your bosses fall in? If it’s the first, you and female-coworker should make sure they are aware of what’s going on, because otherwise escapee will keep on getting credit for work not done, getting promoted, being assigned tasks they will again not do… If it’s the second, that’s not good, to put it mildly.
That’s why you’re worrying AT it: the words are English but the sentence is nonsense. It’s like telling me that I have to do my part to minimize tax fraud: other than do my taxes to the best of my ability, which I already do, there’s jackshit I’m capable of doing about that issue.
Yes, and also - WTF? How can management actually say that?
Accountant (note it’s the 10th of september): “:eek: … and someone entered an invoice on the 1st and they didn’t change the date and it got posted on the 1st and it should be posted to August! :eek: I don’t know what to do! :eek:”
My boss: “well, the person who did it needs to cancel it and do it again. Have you spoken with them?”
Accountant: “:eek:”
My boss: “please tell them to do this.”
Accountant: “:eek: me? :eek:”
My boss: “well, you can also tell their boss to tell them.”
Accountant: “:eek:”
She’s written to the guy cc boss and me. I still don’t have a way to enter the factory without someone opening the door for me because there isn’t a procedure on how to create a badge for a contractor who comes here for a visit longer than a few hours. Well, actually I can’t enter the “general” (office-type) areas, but I can enter the “secure” areas because I happen to know the code for the keypads :smack: Safety tenth or something; lots of people wear their protection equipment in ways which are consistant with the procedure as written but the safety equivalent of wearing your motorbike helmet on your elbow.
I think I’m going to refer to excessive dependency on procedures as “functional irresponsibility”.
Our contract is being pulled, all operations are being consolidated in El Paso. For some reason I have been chosen to be one of the ones riding this office into the ground; others with more time in are bring let go this week and in two weeks, my last day is October 14th.
Dear importantish dude:
“sorry, I don’t know” means, exactly, “I have no fucking idea but I went to school when they taught manners”. You’ve asked me if I knew where Dom was (probably at lunch but I don’t know where), if I knew where Louis was (I suspect at lunch but again I don’t know), if I know whether there is a projector in this room (how should I know? I’m the new person, it’s my first time in this room!), and the answer still is “sorry, I don’t know”.
Even the worst job can do some positive work, as a bad example. The one before this was damn good (I barely came to this thread in six months!), the kind of place which looks like it would be great to “retire” to (retire from doing contract-based work, not from working). This one has so far managed to leave a single box unticked in my Bad Customers’ Cuestionnary: they do not hate their clients, either internal or external. No matter how many times I run into these levels of The Stupid, it makes my head hurt.
PSA: buying SAP (or any of its competitors) and using it as a go-between between a dozen separate systems, with interfaces between everything, with master data in all thirteen systems, with a setup that means any minimal change to processes needs new programming… is like hiring Emma Thompson to advertise Evax pads. Can she flounce about in little brightly-colored panties and a top? Sure, it’s definitely within her capabilities. But given that you’d be paying her as much as if she was writing, directing and being the whole cast of a 50-character movie, it’s a little bit of a waste.
I got a job offer! Huzzah! Training starts today! Huzzah!! But at what time?
Them: Training starts at 1:30 pm central standard time.
Me: Uhhmm … we’re still in daylight savings time?
Guess I’ll log on an hour “early” just to be sure. Or will it run an hour late?
wanders off, muttering “spring forward, fall back” while counting on fingers
Congratulations! November 4th at midnight we “fall back”.
In my experience, when someone says “Central Standard Time”, they generally mean the current time in the central time zone, whether DST is in effect or not.
Dear part-time DBA / control freak: you have been on this project less than two years. Everyone else on the project has been on it anywhere from 5-20 years. If you want complete and total control of the database, even though everyone else is more familiar with it than you, then you need to be more responsive when someone needs something on short notice. Especially during testing/pre-production. None of this “send me an email, it may take me a day to respond, and another day or two to do the work” BS. Do it when we ask for it, or give us our access back so we can do it ourselves.
Update 1: looks like our Fat Bald Guy was correct.
Update 2: mission accomplished 
honestly, I mostly wanted to get SOMEthing onto the front page of the Pit besides politics, plus a tiny dash of humble brag cuz I’ve been un- or under-employed for so friggin long.
I kinda missed the stories in this thread! The hell y’all been up to, that nobody’s had any crap go down at their dysfunctional workplaces for like a solid month?