# This is why I want to go home early today **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 17, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883 "2008-07-17T23:24:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/21 "2008-07-18T14:36:41Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] No Behe? [/QUOTE] As long as we’re speculating on naming rooms after nutso pseudoscientists, haw about naming one after Jack Chick? Surely you could entice a bunch of computer nerds to go to meetings in The Chick Room. ---
**Author:** ![Iggins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Iggins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggins)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/22 "2008-07-18T15:32:54Z")
Heh. I read this without noticing your user name. I thought you were the “Locator Database Guy”, and this pit wasn’t going to go well for you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/23 "2008-07-18T15:51:27Z")
In my world it goes something like this. . . Phone: Ring, Ring Me: Good morning, bossman (he calls in on line 3, so I know it’s him). Boss: Ok, I’m trying to send an email and I want to make some changes, and I _ **used** _ to be able to just highlight the part I didn’t want and hit ‘delete’, but now I can’t do that. Why can’t I do that? This is really starting to annoy me. Why does this have to be so hard to figure out? Me: So you’re trying to Forward an email someone else sent you, but make changes to some of the text? Boss: Yes! Me: Have you clicked ‘Forward’ yet? Boss: :mad: I hate it when you do that. :rolleyes: Thank goodness I _do_ get to go home early today. I don’t know if I could take another full day of that kind of stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/24 "2008-07-18T16:02:15Z")
[QUOTE=Cisco] I’ve had worse conversations with tech guys. No kidding. Some _really, really_ good IT types are so technical-minded that they’re basically retarded in all other manners of thinking. [/QUOTE] And this is why I have job\* security. Yay for techies who can’t communicate with ordinary people. \*About half of my job is liaising (translating) between sales and the IT department. Sales asks for something, I write up the job request in language that IT understands; IT has questions, I translate back and forth; item is ready for testing, I do testing because I understand how it’s supposed to work and also what sales wants. Then I write user instructions. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![pantheon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6bbea6/32.png) [@pantheon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantheon)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/25 "2008-07-18T16:10:19Z")
[QUOTE=Roderick Femm] And this is why I have job\* security. Yay for techies who can’t communicate with ordinary people. \*About half of my job is liaising (translating) between sales and the IT department. Sales asks for something, I write up the job request in language that IT understands; IT has questions, I translate back and forth; item is ready for testing, I do testing because I understand how it’s supposed to work and also what sales wants. Then I write user instructions. Roddy [/QUOTE] The Bobs would like to speak with you. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/26 "2008-07-18T16:26:44Z")
Man, conference rooms. Around here, the conference rooms were originally named after some feature they had. The room with the yellow paint was the Sun Room. The large room with the high ceiling was the Main Hangar. The really nice room with the fancy windows was the Executive. Really easy to figure out, for the most part. For some reason, facilities decided that they wanted to change all the conference room names to the names of our various product lines. Everyone hated this idea, and no one uses the new names. No one can find conference rooms, because they can’t remember which names go with which rooms, and there’s no rhyme or reason to which rooms got which names. To make it worse, some of them were named products that were still in development, and didn’t yet have their final brandname decided on, so they used the production name. When the final decision was made, the names of these conference rooms were changed in Outlook, but not on the door to the conference room. So now we’ve got rooms with three different names. The guy who sets up the meeting will tell you in person that the meeting’s in Central, he’ll send you an email that says it’s in Lightning, and then you have to go look for the conference room door that says Didj. The best part is that, when they announced this, they sent out an email saying that they’d be posting maps around the office telling you which conference rooms are which. There was a post-script that said, “In keeping with our enviroment friendly policies, these maps will be printed on both sides!” Apparently, it wasn’t until they started taping these doublesided maps to the walls that they realized the flaw with that plan. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/27 "2008-07-18T16:28:57Z")
[QUOTE=pantheon] The Bobs would like to speak with you. [/QUOTE] “I have people skills! What the hell is wrong with you people?” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/28 "2008-07-18T16:51:44Z")
My main source of this is from our receptionist: > [@](#): > > From: Larry [Mudd] > Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 2:36 PM > To: [Boss] > Subject: Actual conversation. > I do try to keep things as simple as possible for [receptionist]. Here’s a word-for-word transcription of our latest conversation: > > Larry: Warrington PCI will be sending a courier to pick up this box. I’ve written “Warrington PCI” on it here, see? > > [Receptionist]: What’s the name of the company, so I’ll know which box to give to them when they come in the door? > > Larry: ……. Warrington PCI. Again: > [@](#): > > From: Larry [Mudd] > Sent: July-7-08 2:29 PM > To: [Receptionist] > Subject: Meeting room booking > Importance: High > > Could you please book the small meeting room for all day Wednesday? > > (For [auditor] of Reid Hurst Nagy) > > Thanks, > Larry [Mudd] > > * * * > > From: [Receptionist] > Sent: July-7-08 3:08 PM > To: Larry [Mudd] > Subject: RE: Meeting room booking > > Ok, is this an all day booking? It’s _always_ like this. I theorize that there is actually _no level of concision_ that will make instructions readily comprehensible for her. It’s amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/29 "2008-07-18T17:01:33Z")
I think she’s just messing with you, **Larry**. (I hope she’s just messing with you. I suspect she isn’t, though, and I also suspect she’s peaked at receptionist. Although I also suspect that she hasn’t, due to the baffling way the world works.) ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/30 "2008-07-18T17:07:14Z")
Jeez, where are you people working with these conference room names? I’ve worked in a few really nice buildings, and as far as I can remember all the conferences rooms have been 1 2 3 4 or A B C D, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/31 "2008-07-18T17:09:42Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] I think she’s just messing with you, **Larry**. (I hope she’s just messing with you. I suspect she isn’t, though, and I also suspect she’s peaked at receptionist. Although I also suspect that she hasn’t, due to the baffling way the world works.) [/QUOTE] No, she’s on the level. There’s something “off” about her. When I have people come to see me, she’d say “Larry, there’s a gorgeous woman from LMS 2621 here to see you,” or “There’s a tall, dark strapping man from Pitney Bowes for you.” Eventually I had to tell her she shouldn’t make personal comments like that. (Maybe borderline okay for sales agents, but for owners and council members… not cool.) She told one of the forms clerks, “As soon as I started here, I though ‘Wow, that girl has the greatest ass I’ve seen my whole life.’” Yesterday she went into huge detail about her problems urinating. “I broke the seal, Larry.” Huh? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/32 "2008-07-18T17:41:27Z")
[QUOTE=Karen Lingel] Real life email conversation: ====== To: Locator Database Guy From: Karen Subject: Map Correction: Room I cannot find Feynman in the conference room locator. ====== [/QUOTE] This is all wrong, wrong, wrong! It’s supposed to be the _Heisenberg_ conference room that cannot be found in the locator! Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/33 "2008-07-18T17:50:04Z")
[QUOTE=Sailboat] This is all wrong, wrong, wrong! It’s supposed to be the _Heisenberg_ conference room that cannot be found in the locator! Sailboat [/QUOTE] There’s always the Schrodinger conference room, which may or may not have been converted to a janitorial closet. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/34 "2008-07-18T18:02:02Z")
I post “Sailboat wins.” and then Schrodinger gets added. Love it. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/35 "2008-07-18T18:34:01Z")
I’m not an IT person, but I’m the only one in my office with the slightest computer knowledge, so I get called with questions all the time. Yesterday a secretary called me in a panic because she had been working on an Excel worksheet, and now all of her work was gone. I walked up to her desk and discovered that she had scrolled to the right a couple hundred cells. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/36 "2008-07-18T18:39:25Z")
For a real party, wait till these morons aren’t looking, then sneak up to their desks and hit CTRL + ALT + one of the directional keys 🙂 \*Windows only ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/37 "2008-07-18T19:19:35Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd] When I have people come to see me, she’d say “Larry, there’s a gorgeous woman from LMS 2621 here to see you,” or “There’s a tall, dark strapping man from Pitney Bowes for you.” Eventually I had to tell her she shouldn’t make personal comments like that. (Maybe borderline okay for sales agents, but for owners and council members… not cool.) She told one of the forms clerks, “As soon as I started here, I though ‘Wow, that girl has the greatest ass I’ve seen my whole life.’” Yesterday she went into huge detail about her problems urinating. “I broke the seal, Larry.” Huh? [/QUOTE] My head would explode. I’m a complete goody-two-shoes when it comes to this kind of thing and this would send me over the edge. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/38 "2008-07-18T19:33:58Z")
[QUOTE=pantheon] The Bobs would like to speak with you. [/QUOTE] I’m going through the discography in my head. I’m not seeing the connection. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/39 "2008-07-18T19:38:52Z")
[QUOTE=Robot Arm] I’m going through the discography in my head. I’m not seeing the connection. [/QUOTE] In addition to the jazz quartet, “[The Bobs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR7HDERBCQE)” are also the two “efficiency consultants” brought in to streamline Initech operations (ie. fire unnecessary people) in the movie _Office Space_. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883/40 "2008-07-18T19:40:59Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] For a real party, wait till these morons aren’t looking, then sneak up to their desks and hit CTRL + ALT + one of the directional keys 🙂 \*Windows only [/QUOTE] Doesn’t do squat on my Windows XP work machine. Whassit supposed to do? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-i-want-to-go-home-early-today/456883.md?page=3)