Understaffed, underpaid, and you want to improve morale with a BBQ?!?

The BBQ Pit
1

What are you, crazy?!? We normally have 7 people in our department, we’re down one, who left for a better job. Another one is on vacation, and when she comes back, someone ELSE will be gone. And what happens? You loan out one of our remaining people to ANOTHER department because they’re shorthanded too. Great. How is that supposed to help us?!?

We’re behind on our quality control – well, almost caught up now, because I’ve put my shoulder to the wheel to get it out. But at the expense of getting the rest of the work done, unfortunately. I’ve been picking up the slack where I can.

Meanwhile, thank you for the promotion and raise. What you’ve done is add responsibility to my job, increase my salary by not a whole lot, and change me from an hourly employee to a salaried one. By any chance, have you been aware of the extra overtime I wasn’t charging you for and just decided to go ahead and take advantage of this? It’s bad enough I’m required to give up four Saturdays a year for some “forums” – now I don’t even get paid for them. Or for any extra time that’s put in.

And NOW you want to throw a barbeque for our department and families? NOW, when we’re already at each other’s throats and wanting to kill one another, you think we can socialize off hours? You are out of your feckin’ mind!!! I can barely stand the sight of my coworkers now, if I had to socialize with them at present murder would be committed – and not mine.

This place is so screwed up, it makes the government look like a model of efficiency!

2

Well, before we get all upset about this, tell me, is it Carolina-style barbeque?

3

oh good god, that would be the last straw wouldn’t it.

I’ve experienced the human agony known as carolina bbq. I’ve vowed never again…

4

Don’t go. Enjoy your weekend. Take pleasure in the knowledge that they are all mired in their little weekday world, probably talking about you, but you don’t have to be there or hear it. Go to work on Monday, satisfied and glowing in the knowledge that you did not spend one more minute in the presence of your beastly boss and co-workers than you had to. That’s what I do.

5

Cranky begins busily, desperately building herself a concrete bunker to protect herself before the BBQ wars start.

I don’t want to get too involved, because I eat both types… but you, my good sir, have revealed yourself to be a yankee heathen. God I hope this mortar sets before the carolina BBQ purists get here.

6

This post will likely reveal me as a person who is ignorant in the ways of proper BBQ, but can someone explain what exactly a “Carolina BBQ” is?

7

True Story

I work for one of the top credit card issuers as a fraud analyst. Our management, in an attempt to reduce fraud losses, implemented a system where we stop a customer at the point of sale and identify them. However, depending on what they use the card for next, the charge may be outright declined and the card unusable until the customer calls and undergoes security verification.

Not just normal “please verify your mother’s maiden name and social security number” but “please verify all information on the account.”

Naturally and quite understandably, these customers can be very irate. I’d be irate too.

I was one of the lucky people selected to handle these calls. My prize? A big red flag for my cube.
Whee doggie! That flag is sure fun to look at when a customer is inviting you to stick their credit card up your ass.

8

At least a BBQ is something. I’m in roughly the same position (bent over the desk perhaps?) at work, but to add on top of it we are having quarterly layoffs in the thousands and no job security. I tried to buy pizza for my guys today because we all came in on our (forced) vacation to move the damn server room, and the rotten SOB director would not expense a couple of pizzas. Sure, the company lost umpteen billion dollars last year, but that 30 bucks of pizza would not break the bank…

Um, sorry to hijack on ya CairCair. This started as a “Be thankfull for what you got” and evolved into my first pit rant. :slight_smile:

9

Did I mention I baked brownies FROM SCRATCH and took them in to work today? I thought it would be a nice gesture. Did I also mention that NOT ONE PERSON could be bothered to even eat ONE?

Inconsiderate, selfish bastards. See if I ever make something for you again!

Oh, and they’re having a birthday party for one of the coworkers on Friday – a Mexican theme, we’re all supposed to bring something. I volunteered a bean dip platter before this came up. I may go ahead and bring it, but not refrigerate it first. (OK, petty revenge, but the thought of making them as physically sick as they make me feel mentally and psychologically is delicious!)

The worst is, I DON’T hate the job, or the work I do, just the people I must deal with day-to-day and their work (or lack thereof) habits. If I could work in a separate office, or a remote area (even more remote than where I am now – with a whiny coworker across the aisle from me and my ineffectual boss next to her) I would be a helluva lot happier.

“If I weren’t one of them, I’d like to see every human being lined up against the wall and shot.” FEH.

Oh, well. Tomorrow will be better. (At least it BETTER be!)

10

Okay, yankee heathen is one. What’s the other type you eat?

caircair
Your post reminded me of a MADTV sketch. Woman brings macaroni sald to potluck, everyone makes absurd reasons why they can’t eat it (“I’m a vegatarian” “But it doesn’t have any meat in it it!”… “I’m sorry, I can’t eat that. I… have a manual transmission” etc." Finally she throws a fit about how everyone hates her, and everyone is shamed into eating it. Cut to a newspaper headline “19 people dead after fatal potluck”.

11

Everyone knows that the only barbeque worth killing the cow for is Texas BBQ. All others are mere pretenders! :smiley:

12

You ppl are on drugs

Real BBQ = Kansas City or Memphis (I favor Memphis. something about that molasses base)

But back on topic…

Ahhh sounds like the old “morale is down, hey lets buy IT a pizza” bullshit. I worked too many jobs where management tried that ploy. Best comeback to the offer of pizza was a admin who was pissed off about not having resources. After the offer during our meeting with the HUA (head up ass) department aka the Suits, he rose up, took one look back and said 'unless this fucking Domino’s comes with a Unix backbone on top of it, I quit." and stormed out.

Amazingly, he got it days later.

13

Where d’you work? Wanna come work here? Caircair, If you bake ME brownies and I don’t eat em, bury me, I’m dead.

b.

14

caircair, go ahead and bring the bean dip - Safeway has lovely dip in their deli department. First rule of job satisfaction - never do more than you have to to look like you actually care (if you do nothing, you might have to waste time explaining yourself to cow-orkers). You’ve already figured out the second rule - never go to work-related social events unless the company is paying for your time. See, if you make the least effort possible, it doesn’t bug you as much when you get taken advantage of over and over then fired unexpectedly.(Just my opinion, of course. I could be wrong :D)

15

Please, an accurate definition of what “Carolina” barbecue is.

Lives could depend on the answer.

16

The bean dip is being delivered by Albertsons. Since I don’t own a car, this way I don’t have to stop at the store and/or try to bring it on the bus.

As for baking from scratch – it’s a remarkably easy recipe. Just check for the one-bowl brownie recipe on Bakers Chocolate.

17

South Carolina barbecue is chopped pork in a spicy mustard sauce.

I believe North Carolina barbecue is what is referred to here. I think it is also pork with a vinegary sauce? I’m sure Cranky’ll be along to correct me if that’s not right.

18

We used to have yearly BBQ’s. Well, not BBq, really. Just hot dogs. But administration would cook and serve them. There’d be drawings & raffles for kinda neat prizes, like gift certificates & stuff. Music, too–sometimes a DJ, sometimes a live band (who happen to be employees).It was also on work property during work hours, so being able to get away from the desk for a little while during the afternoon was nice.

But no more.

I work at City Hall in Flint, Michigan. Michiganders might be hearing on the news about our un-freaking-believable money crisis. Not only are we losing employees right and left, we no longer have the money for this little morale booster. Didn’t have one last year, and aren’t having one this year. It’s not like they cost a lot, either. Few hundred at most, according to what the organizers once told me.

Today was a monumental day in Flint City government history. Right about now is when we usually have this picnic. But we’re not. Today, the City Council voted on the mayor’s deficit reduction plan, one day before they HAD to have it in to the state (yes, we ARE looking at the state stepping in here). They passed it, but only because a) the mayor decided NOT to use the police pension fund to pay off the deficit…this year, and b) the employees don’t have to make any concessions…this year (we were looking at a massive wage and benefit cut, along with more layoffs).

But the mayor wasn’t at the Council meeting this afternoon.

(stand back folks…my spleen is on it’s way out in a very big way…)

The mayor was out golfing.

The mayor was out golfing, at the Buick Open Pro-Am.

The mayor was out golfing, at the Buick Open Pro-Am, which costs $4000 to enter.

That IGNORANT assmunch is spending $4000 to GOLF while he faces the WORST crisis of his abso-fucking-lutely USELESS career. We have lost TWO HUNDRED employees is the last YEAR because we cannot AFFORD them because we have a TWENTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT, and HE spends MY HOT DOG AND RAFFLE MONEY ON GOLF! I suppose I could live without the hot dogs, though, if maybe he’d decided to, oh, I don’t know, put that money towards PAYROLL.

Yeah, I’m pissed.

So caircair, please, try to enjoy the barbecue. At least your superiors are giving it a shot.

19

Persephone, my sympathies. HOWEVER:

This BBQ is actually supposed to be a potluck. At my boss’ house. And it’s just for our department – i.e., 7 people plus family. It’s supposed to be a chance to get to know one another better, and get to see the “other people in our lives”.

Right. If I wanted to socialize with these people, I would do so. But when the weekend comes, I want ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with ANY of them. They are not my friends, they are co-workers. We have very few personal tastes or hobbies in common. And, frankly, I don’t LIKE them very much!

20

Well, you see, it all depends on whether you’re talking Eastern North Carolina (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill and points east) or Western North Carolina (Asheville, etc). WNC BBQ is really good; it’s reddish brown, like a sauce ought to be (although I also like South Carolina BBQ, for some perverse reason), but ENC BBQ is chopped pork (actually pulled pork) in a sauce made from white vinegar, red pepper flakes, and sugar, and is the very Devil’s own food. Ick-o-rama. Waste of good pork.

I’m going with Heath Doolin and Revedge on this one; further west (whether it’s Kansas City, Texas, or Oklahoma makes no nevermind to me) or north (Memphis, yum) is where the BBQ is best. I have a personal thing for BBQ beef brisket (Texas) and hot links (BBQ sausage–Oklahoma), but I’m relatively flexible. Just can’t STAND that ENC stuff.

And, to address the OP, caircair, I really don’t see a way out of this unless you’ve reached the point where you don’t care if you piss people off. If it were a larger department, sure, or if you had (or could plausibly construct) a legitimate excuse for your absence, that’d be one thing. Failing that, however, it may be that you’ll just have to suck it up, grit your teeth, go, and leave as soon as realistically possible. Sorry. :frowning: