Do you find that complaining about something (whenever it’s justified) can be fun?
For a while my office has been fairly quiet and mundane. Nothing to complain about you see. Now though we, or rather my call center colleagues have something to complain about. They have a new manager. And he is one of those ‘shake things up’ people. He has already banned eating and the use of laptops in the office, claiming that any with a webcam could potentially be leaking sensitive information to the outside world.
He has been brought in to boost morale and improve things. Ironically he is having a positive effect on morale by being the reason to band together as a group and complain.
OMG, that is so Dilbertian I can hardly believe it!! Does he know that towers can also get webcams plugged in? (Better not tell him so, or you might be bumped down to manual typewriters.) Wouldn’t it be easier just to ban webcams??
I thought of making a joke about eating with a webcam, but decided it was too much of a stretch.
My Direct Boss and I had a Mutual Friend. MF was hired as (essentially) a second me when MF found herself in a tight financial situation.
I had bitched to MF about DB many times before, but MF could never really relate with what I would rant about. DB puts on a good show for outsiders.
It took one week before MF was fed up, ready to walk out the door with a one-finger salute. All of a sudden, everything I’d said up to that point became truth.
Having an ally on “my side” made things a bit more tense between DB and me for quite a while. MF did eventually leave the job with the reason that she had too much on her plate to be able to properly focus on the job. Sounds good on paper, anyway.
So then it was two, for nearly six months. I received a promotion of sorts: I was given my own office (yay!) to handle tasks I’d been handling for more than a year. I was pleased as… punch.
The position I was initially hired to fill was still there. Stuff piles up quickly, and DB still needed an assistant. The new one hired was ready to leave by day two. Unfortunately, new one won’t let me quote her on that. She stuck it out until funding was no longer available and will consider returning if she can get a work study scholarship. Admirable character, that one.
The New York Time revealed that the boss of my non-profit company handed himself a large pay raise while cutting wages and paid holidays for everyone else. Under his tenure we all know the company has lost major contracts.
Nothing unites company workers like a public announcement that your boss is not only a totally incompetent asshole but a greedy incompetent asshole.
One of Barça Futbol Club’s most nototious coaches, Louis van Gaal, had exactly that same effect. The question wasn’t “why has soandso had a fight with the Mister?”, it was “does any player not hate the Mister?” Even the ones who were starting every game had complaints. I heard people say “is he married?” with tones that meant it to imply “is there a woman who’s been able to put up with him, and who hasn’t divorced him yet?”
Made for several years’ worth of soap opera in the sportscasts.
