I’m trying to find the logic in that sentence and it continues to elude me. I should probably stop before I hurt myself.
Our call center was open business as usual today instead of a skeleton crew (like every New Year’s Day in the past). None of the temp workers could access the building this morning because someone at the time agency didn’t file something they were supposed to do last week to renew the contract so their badges automatically expired at midnight. :smack: And there was nobody from building facilities here to reactivate their badges, nor was anyone at the temp agency. So I had to spend part of my morning in the lobby telling people to go home and we’ll get everything sorted out tomorrow. :mad: At least this afternoon we finally managed to finagle permission to start sending people home on voluntary time off because of low call volume, no work for them to do, and a complete lack of any business need to have the call center fully staffed. Because that’s what people like; getting up early to go to work on New Year’s Day and then getting the afternoon off.
He called in to say he wasn’t coming to work this week because he thought he could make more driving for Uber.
And presumably get paid immediately instead of waiting for a paycheck that wouldn’t arrive before rent was due.
With all the initiatives going around at work, I had almost forgotten one big one. Corporate is trying to “harmonize” all the various purchasing procedures and the like. As part of this, POs are only supposed to be open for one year. In the past, this has been taken to mean one rolling calendar year (e.g. A PO opened in March 2017 would be closed in March 2018). But, I guess now it means all POs will be closed at the end of the calendar year.
All POs. Except not really all, just a lot of them, enough that you have to check every open PO you thought you had.
For me, this means I have POs which I’ve received against but will not accept invoices. For others, especially maintenance and the lady that takes care of all the temp agency stuff, this means a lot of the contractors that do our day to day stuff (clean bathrooms, shovel snow, etc.) will not get paid.
To make matters even worse, the person who apparently ordered this action, is on vacation still, leaving all us underlings in the lurch. Just beautiful.
That’s where you have to ask boss’s boss (in boss’s absence) how to resolve the issue and pay or receive the invoices. Without commentary or complaining. Just matter of fact, x needs to be done, how do we do this?
Let the two of them work out how that happened later.
I let someone less angry than me handle that, especially since it is really hard right now to know who is charge of what in purchasing/procurement right now.
Can I brag? It’s not even stealth.
I’m finishing my current project Soon ™, therefore hunting for the next one. I’m also, although more calmly, searching for eventually perhaps maybe a job back in the world of the third-party employed, specifically within the IT Department of a manufacturing company; the idea is to do the same kind of work I do, but without having to learn new quirks, formats and food preferences (1) every few months. 1: the team which eats together designs well together.
I’ve had an interview with a promising prospect for the long-term thing. They said they like me but “want to think about it a bit more”, and I’ve had to ask “uh, guys, y’all know if you’re making me an offer or not? I’ve got these other people who were looking for someone for 3 months but who have instead made me a 12 months offer…”
I realize most people would give a finger or two to be in this situation. Wish I could hand around the jobs I can’t take because I can’t clone myself. Can’t. Fidgety as all get-gooooOOOOoooo…
Nava, that’s great! But it’s so frustrating that company timelines for deciding can grind sssso slowwwwly… I’ve had to give up on firms that just couldn’t get their shit together.
I ran into a woman I’d interviewed with, and she said “Now, don’t worry, we’re still trying to get the salary figured out so we can make you an offer!” Umm, that was TWO YEARS AGO… I’d completely forgotten that I’d given up on you before I took that job so long ago that I’ve had two promotions at already…
Yikes. So many qualifiers, one might be forgiven for concluding you’re trying to avoid jinxing something
Am I interpreting correctly that you’re considering seeking (or even accepting) permanent employment somewhere? 'Cos that would be BIG.
If leaving the peripatetic path you’ve been regaling us with for the past fourteen years is truly your desire and goal, I wish you the best of luck in achieving it. I have no fears that we’ll lose your contributions to the workplace griping thread(s); I know you’ll find plenty to keep you on your toes for as long as there’s a SDMB.
Fingers and toes crossed! 
I hate when my coworkers put their makeup on in the bathroom at work. I don’t want anyone standing there listening when I’m dropping the kids off at the pool.
What a great metaphor. I never did understand “Got to see a man about a horse.” or “Time to shake hands with the Senator.” But I hate to plagiarize, so I think I’ll start saying “Excuse me, I have to drop some kittens in a well.”
Aspiring to be That Guy at work, are you? 
I’m 61, am master’s prepared, have been with my current job 17+ years, make good money, and have flexible hours. But I fucking hate the administration of the large health care corporation that gobbled us up. My job challenges have shifted and regressed so that a trained monkey can do my job. I’m trying to realize that I only have to do this for 2-3 more years, and that I can do this without hating everyone.
Yeah, but one thing about this peripatheric path is that you get to see a lot of bad companies. And when you do run into a good one there’s this clause in the contract saying that if the client wants to keep you, they need to pay to the agency half a dozen kidneys, two dozen highly-trained slaves and a chalet in Mallorca 
Good companies tend to frown on slavery, so the second part of the price is a big no-no.
I worked for many years as an IT consultant, at many companies, and the contracts always had this provision.
But it was never enforced!
If the consultant company had ever tried to enforce that provision against a person that the client company wanted to hire full time, they would just remind the consultant company how many of their consultants were placed at that company, and mention how many competing consultant firms there were in town who wanted their business.
I saw this happen many times, and they always settled for something much less than the contract provisions. Never more than the hiring company would have paid a recruiter, and usually more like half to 3/4ths of that.
To reward us for our performance, my boss bought pizza for everyone today.
Except me.
I’m vegan, and she knows that. When she asked if we wanted pizza, I shared info about a nearby place that sells both vegan and non-vegan pizza (privately, so as not to call her out in front of anyone), but she wanted to go with her preferred place, which has no vegan options.
“I’m ordering just a few pies from <my place>. I don’t want to leave you out – salad or soup?” Well, her place doesn’t sell salad or soup either. No soup for me!
Maybe she has a coupon for her place, or a frequent-buyer reward of some sort, and can’t go elsewhere without losing that benefit.
I’m not trying to be the difficult guy. I’ve never proselytized at work nor do I make snide remarks or anything. Bear in mind this office has shown great consideration of other peoples’ lifestyle issues. So I just said no, thank you.
When she realized this meant there would be nothing for me, she offered me this, and I quote exactly:
“I do have an organic can of tomato soup, that’s kind of pizza-like.”
THAT is what brought me to the Pit today.
Well it seems the official word is that the higher ups only wanted to close the leasing POs. So the went to the IM department and asked them to write a script to make this happen. And then all hell broke loose. The official fix is that I have to go through all my POs, see which are impacted, and send a list of all of them to some other person in Brazil to have them fix it. Yay, more work for me. :mad:
On top of this, the Procurement department (as they are now called) sent me an email with a powerpoint in it that basically, I guess, explains how we are supposed to interface with them now. It doesn’t give us many actual contacts that will actually be able to help us if we have problems, but whatever. The thing that irks me about this is that they tried to make it fun by inserting a bunch of comics where I’m sure they didn’t get the joke. They say they are customer focused but apparently they think the part that is causing all the problems is the sourcing (it isn’t) and not the paying (it is). They also what us to put in a service ticket to buy things instead of filling out a requisition. As a project engineer, managing capital project, this makes no freakin sense. I can (and should!) do my own sourcing. I already have all the access I need to buy things. What I can’t do is edit POs, receive invoices, and cut checks. That’s what I need Procurement to do.
We are supposed to have a lunch and training session with them in a week and a half. I’m not looking forward to this.
ETA: Congrats Nava. It’s great to be in demand!
I have (had?) a massive PO for a repair job that I signed off a couple of years ago. I have no idea where the item to be repaired ended up, but at some point last year the PO itself was ‘accidentally’ closed in the system, with the repairs never being performed. (A formal change order to close the PO was never signed either.) I brought this to the attention of a couple of project managers, but neither of them seemed very concerned about it. The paperwork is still in a corner of my office.
Rant for the day: my company has abruptly decided to hire a vendor to service the various dispensers in the restrooms. I guess this is fine – at least the new toilet paper dispensers are firmly mounted to the walls, and the new soap dispenser doesn’t drip – but part of the deal was an automatic air freshener sprayer. Yay, something else to add to the quadrillion or so aerosol cans we already have in the restroom. Of course, in order to install the new automatic sprayer, they had to take down the old one, and they managed to partially rupture the scent cartridge/receptacle in the process. Now there’s a mess of oily, gritty, strong-smelling sludge on top of a cabinet, along with the remains of the old sprayer. I don’t know if this can be blamed on the vendor, or one of our employees.
I am so glad I work in a place with a scent-free policy. Although that hasn’t stopped someone from putting a tube of pumpkin spice-scented stank lotion in the bathroom. :mad: