The contract from the agent before the current one had a paragraph stating (paraphrased) that
…if the final client has their own time-reporting system, that is what will be used. Consultants will not need to fill a second system for our agency.
The first month I worked for them, and after I’d already reported and invoiced, they rolled out a fancy! New! Snazzy! System! Which was required (against contractual conditions) and set up in such a way that we had to have a UK bank account or a UK bank account or a UK bank account. Does anybody see some sort of incoherence between that and having people from at least four different continents working all across Europe? Maybe it’s just me…
Every month I worked for them they changed the system. Every month, after the majority of people had already filled the previous version (well, we were only able to do this once the “UK bank” requirement had been removed).
They were late with a payment. I asked “whazap?” They said the consulting firm’s manager hadn’t approved my hours. Manager said “oops” and approved them. Still not paying. Now they claim I didn’t fulfill reporting requirements and must report hours properly to a system to which I no longer have access (they removed it on the last day of my contract; in the morning I had access, by 1700 I did not). Mind you: by the time the end of January (and therefore, the January change) rolled in, my contract had already finished; I couldn’t, can’t, report.
If anybody wants to know the name of these goatfelchers so you can avoid working for them or hiring them, please PM.
The penalty is that I’m going to be telling everybody every time we get to bringing out old war stories, at the very least.
After much polite cursing on my part and an apologetic call from their legal department, the electrons are supposed to be in the wire Right Now, but this is a great example of “your internal mess should NOT have caused ME damages.” If the contract was from any European country other than the UK I might be looking into small claims court, just to put them through the boredom and expense…
“Uh, does the customer really need to review this change notice? They already reviewed revision 1.”
Well there’s a paragraph that takes up half of a fucking page in revision 2 that explicitly states that the entire reason revision 2 exists is to notify the customer of some substantial changes to the part design. Gee, do you think the customer needs to be notified of that before giving us the money? :rolleyes:
I just filed a report for my (Federal) job. I had to update my password for their system, which I use once a year.
The password requirements are beyond ridiculous. They look like someone’s parody of password requirements:
It’s a good thing I have a secure way to save passwords, because they make it so that it could never be memorized. If I knew who wrote this program, I’d Pit them for sure!
The requirement about not using words is one of my favorites. Cos everybody speaks a single language, you know. A couple of times I’ve encountered computer games which explicitly indicated you were not allowed to use “god”, “jesus” or “anything of a religious significance”. Here comes my character, Jaungoikoa… And then there’s that autofilter feature, beloved of Spanish-speaking players, which allows one to speak of Pantera Negra (Black Panther) but not of Rayo ***** (Black Bolt), or which asterisks any word containing certain letter combinations, one of which happens to be both the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess and relatively frequent in Spanish verbal forms.
I have two complaints I wish to lodge against our “customer focused” procurement department (CFP department).
Complaint number 1:
I am currently the designated person in my group that handles putting in change requests with our master data group for updates to the vendor master database. If we need a new vendor, need to update addresses or banking information, I am the girl that handles that. I collect the paperwork, put it into the system and let procurement and the master data team handle the rest. Now, the CFP team wants handle entering those change requests. Ok, fine by me.
So, when one of my coworkers needed a vendor extended for use at our plant (in the database for other plants), they put in a ticket with our CFP team. Of course, no one has actually taught us how these tickets work, what information the CFP team is going to get on their own or what they want us to provide for them. However, this request was simple. I know, though my coworker didn’t, that no actual documentation is needed for master data to do this. The CFP team didn’t know either. In fact, they not only changed the name of the vendor for no reason, they didn’t do the extension correctly. The whole thing is a shitstorm.
I got called in, obviously, because I am the one who “used to” do these things. Seeing how poorly the CFP person screwed it up, I emailed her to gently request that she withdraw her change request so that I could do it properly. She said no. So I’ve spent the past 4 weeks helping this poor CFP person learn how to do these change requests.
While it shouldn’t have been my job to put the change requests in the system in the first place, it REALLY shouldn’t be my job to train the CFP team how to do it.
Complaint number 2:
We outsourced our accounts payable department. It was a terrible move. In an effort to make it better, someone higher up decided that making a new ticketing system would be the best solution to all our problems. Unfortunately, that person apparently washed their hands of the whole thing after they issued the mandate to make it happen. The only communication anyone got when we tried to contact AP the old way was a weird auto-reply saying that emails were not actionable. The worst part was that these were email addresses that weren’t just used by internal people. Our vendors were seeing these auto-replies too. They were seeing the auto-replies when they emailed in invoices to the email address that we tell them to send them to on our POs. All this without even the shortest email.
I recently applied for a loan. They requested a few years worth of business and personal tax returns. I get them from my accountant and upload them to the loan processing website.
Then the loan processor asked me if they were signed copies. I said “No problem, I can digitally sign them”. She said - “No, they won’t accept anything but pen and ink signatures”.
So I download the documents to my iPad, sign them with Apple Pencil , save them and upload them again.
Loan proceeds and I am at the closing. The attorney hands me copies of the tax returns and says “They need signed copies for their files”. But the copies are already signed, they are the ones I signed with Apple Pencil signatures. So she has me sign them again, right on top of the old signatures.
And I still don’t get it. Were they so used to getting unsigned copies that they didn’t even check? Or are the rules actually so stringent that the COPIES require an ORIGINAL signature? I got my money, it all worked out. But I was seriously baffled.
I’ve gotten cynical because accepting praise for a job well done seems to come with strings attached.
We get a problem, and this time the fault/complaint can be duplicated, troubleshooting is easier, needed parts/materials/tooling is readily available. Problem rectified quickly. Management happy. “You guys are great!”. Are we great?
Another time: Fault/complaint very difficult to diagnose. When found, difficult to repair. Needed parts/materials/tooling not readily available. Problem eventually rectified, albeit later than management would like. Management not happy. “You guys are f_cking me” or somesuch petulance. Does that mean we suck?
Overheard: Manager giving updates to his boss over the phone.
When things are going good for us ( like in the former example ) he says a lot of “we”, as in we did this, we did that.
When we’re having a tough time of it ( as in the latter example ) you hear a lot of “they” from him, as in they did this, they that.
we have government documents that have to be signed in blue ink so it can be proven to be a handwritten signature. Thant we then scan to everyone. go figure.
A couple of weeks ago, the MyOwnCompany laptop I’d been using gave signs that it wanted to die. I tried to prepare a Windows10 installation drive, since the replacements I was looking at often came without an OS, but it didn’t work; both with that laptop and with my desktop, the program would run to the very end and then (seriously? after several hours, you shitstains?) give an “unkown error” message and barf up.
The laptop died dead on Friday. I ordered a replacement from a company which is capable of invoicing Spain for something sent to France; no OS and no DVD. After attempts at acquiring a copy of the OS which didn’t require me to also buy an external DVD just so I could use it once to install the OS failed, I tried the two local IT stores. In the first one they wouldn’t even let me finish explaining what I needed, so I took my business and left.
The second guy listened, said “yeah I can do that”, offered several alternatives for the Dead Computer (I wanted it fixed if possible, a friend will be taking it “for my Red Cross kids”) and exclaimed “oh, that’s a NICE one!” when he saw the new box (it’s an ASUS from their gaming line; weighs like a feather, has a charger brick so large it should count as a blunt weapon). He deadpanned that maybe he’d take a few days to return it, make sure it runs games properly. I replied “but of course, you need to make sure the graphic card works correctly!” Meanwhile, my client has finally decided that ok, they could pony up for an Actual MSOffice License, because I hadn’t been able to get anything done all week (Office Online takes one look at the size of my files and faints). So it’s been a few days of driving myself and my officemates crazy but now my client-provided computer can actually be used for all my client-related tasks (yay!) and I should have a new, working, shiny, fancy new computer this afternoon or tomorrow And no more confidential files from the client in my computer, where really, they shouldn’t need to be.
I have to say this, though: for a company which would like every single computer in the world to run their OS, Microsoft sure isn’t very good at making sure it can be obtained easily.
I will admit that, maybe, I’m being a bit oversensitive. I have been told many times that I need to grow thicker skin. However, I still think I’m justified in thinking this new guy is a bit of an ass.
Yesterday, my boss sent us a basically last minute meeting invite for a webex meeting with the corporate team for first thing today. I have a bit of a modified work schedule so this meeting required that I work things out with my daycare lady so that I could come in early. I get in and we learn in the webex that there is a new global director for projects and engineering and this guy wants to be our friend. He introduces himself by where he lives (the Netherlands), what he likes to do in his free time (mountain climbing, of course), and that he has a wife and three teenaged daughters that he escapes by coming to work.
I responded to the room sarcastically that he was very charming.
But really, you’re an engineer, and you are gonna joke about going to work to escape women. Awesome joke, dude. Real funny.
Sarcasm doesn’t work with this kind of person – they never see that t applies to their actions.
You need to put on your big girl pants and give an honest & direct response. “Sexist comments like this sure don’t make me want to work with you!”.
Or be a bit more tactful. In private, tell him: “You need to be careful with a multi-national workforce; some women make see that ‘joke’ as identifying you as a sexist pig that they won’t enjoy working with, and should avoid at all costs. But only some, the others probably took your anti-woman phobia to mean that you are a repressed homosexual.”
And no more confidential files from the client in my computer, where really, they shouldn’t need to be.