Well, thanks for making me feel worthless today.

The BBQ Pit
1

So OK. I need to find a new job.

The Big Boss’ administrative assistant came to see me today. He wants me to show him how to do the web site.

Yep. The whole thing. Just like that.

Wha? say I. Why’s this?

He tells me Big Boss wants him to do it now. All of it. Just like that.

Uh? Did she say why? I inquire.

“Because my office is just outside hers and she wants to be able to just walk over and tell me to change something,” he says.

So I’ve now lost part of my job because she’s too lazy to walk across the hall? Excuse me, WTF? And this is how I hear about it?

I’ve been doing the web site for our department ever since the Biggest Boss mandated the entire thing for the whole school be upgraded almost 2 years ago. It was not the reason I was hired, but I was the only one here with the knowledge, the time, and the willingness to get our part of it online. The time it takes has grown with the site, but I’ve managed to balance it all quite well with the duties originally assigned to this position, or at least so I thought. And now this.

I’ve talked to my boss about it. He says I haven’t done anything wrong he knows about that would make anyone want to have part of my duties transferred. He’s going to talk to Big Boss tomorrow to see if she really understands what all this entails. Which I’m sure she doesn’t because she’s never spoken more than 3 sentences to me that I can recall.

I think the part I like best is that apparently I’m not supposed to mind this - to the point that I’m supposed to happily and cheerily show someone with no web experience at all how to do everything I am already doing and then go on my merry way. I’m not stupid - I know we’ll have more budget cuts this fall and this smells an awful lot to me like they are preparing my head for the chopping block.

Fuck that noise.

I need to find a new job. Now if only someone, anyone was hiring … I feel like crying right now, even thinking about trying to find something decent with the economy being what it is.

Sorry there’s not more swearing. Right now I am too demoralized to work a good one up.

2

Sounds like a rough situation. Is there anyway you could talk to the bigboss? It seems like such a waste to train someone do the the webstuff, when you are already in the office.

Perhaps bigboss thinks it’s a simple affair to show someone web design, in which case you should point it out and save your ass.

Good luck.

3

Make it look so fucking hard that the boss won’t be able to handle it. Do all FTP transfers in command shell, use notepad for html, don’t use indentation for your PERL scripts, etc…

4

(( romansperson ))

That sucks. :frowning: I’ll send “Excellent job offer” vibes your way. I hope they help.

5

FordPrefect, ha that’s pretty good!!
I was going to say something of the same nature, make it loooong, and make it hard. But not too much so they don’t suspect anything :wink:
Good luck with your job search if there is one coming.

6

Notepad? Hell, use Edlin for your HTML!

7

Yeah, I’d say just show the interloper how to do the web site. In detail. With all the appropriate technical language. Fast. Make sure you include lots of hypothetical things that can go wrong and how to respond to all of them.

8

Edlin? Hell, we still flip bits directly on the disks with telepathy over here.

9

I’ve been in a similar situation, and this is precisely how I got out of it.

I do a lot of freelance sites, and lots of my bozos - cough I mean clients - think that once they’ve got a site, they can alter it themselves by viewing it and editing the text in IE. :rolleyes: Result: lots of repeat business for me.

I predict your boss will come running to you back and forth, and give up in the end, handing the job back to you.

10

… with a raise to appreciate the stunning amount of effort you go into to get the job right.

11

quote:

Originally posted by FisherQueen
Yeah, I’d say just show the interloper how to do the web site. In detail. With all the appropriate technical language. Fast. Make sure you include lots of hypothetical things that can go wrong and how to respond to all of them.

Great minds think alike :). This is exactly what I was thinking. I really don’t think they have any idea of how much is involved with the site. Maybe I did that part of my job too well.

My boss spoke with big boss’ assistant today and let him know exactly what he was getting himself into. He didn’t know that in addition to our main site, there are two more smaller ones that I designed and maintain. He’s not quite so enthusiastic about taking on this new responsibility today. And my boss has a meeting with big boss today. If it doesn’t work out then I’m going to have to get my resume in shape.

There are entirely too many people in the world who think what I do is “easy”. WTF is that all about?

12

That is a fact of life. If you don’t know what the other guy does, it must be easy.

13

I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. A few years back, I lost a very talented worker, possibly (probably) due to my poorly communicating to her that all I wanted was redundancy. She was doing work that I had no one else trained to do, and I wanted her to do a brain dump. She thought she was getting fired, so she left and we lost all the productivity gains she had implemented into her work.

Just trying to give you the glass is half-full scenario. Prepare yourself, but don’t despair yet.

14

I love it. That’s exactly what I do when somebody wants be to show them something. I make it difficult so they won’t ask again. I don’t do it to everyone though, just to the ones that ask about the same thing over and over again.

For some reason, people ask me to show them how to make a website, burn an mp3 cd, make a video… With having no experience mind you, oh and they’re serious. Yeah, I’ve learned to do this all by myself in 8+ years, and you want me to show you how to do it all this in minutes? Including learning to install stuff? Tell your boss where to stick it.

15

D_Odds,

I’ve actually told my boss on several occasions that we should train someone else (at least minimally, if nothing else) because there is no back up. If I get hit by a bus, no one here will know how to post to the site or how to enter information into the various databases of dynamically generated content we have. So I don’t have heartburn about that.

It’s the fact that the pipsqueak acted like he was taking over and that his boss is the big boss that threw me - she’s new here and for all I know she really did tell him he was going to do everything. We don’t have her management style figured out yet and it looks like it’s going to take awhile.

Turns out, my boss spoke with her and this is what she told him:

It seems she would like a new section on the web site that will require him going through her email and gathering info based on what the professors here send her regarding their research projects, grant funding, etc. We need a section on the site devoted to research, but no one has volunteered to coordinate it because it’s going to be a lot of work. So I guess she’s basically making him do it and thinks it will somehow be easier if he can do everything associated with the project.

What I don’t know is whether she is backtracking now or if her minion got too big for his britches (seeing an opportunity to add skills to his portfolio, thereby increasing the possibility he could make more than the pittance they pay admin assistants around here). Either way, I sorta feel sorry for him now if this is the straight story. This is going to be 98% gofer and 2% web work. My boss has asked me to prepare a template for him so when he eventually collects enough information to start something, he’ll have something to work with.

Either way, I’m keepin’ my eyes peeled for other opportunities. I’m not liking the way things are being communicated around here these days. The old big boss would have come and talked to me himself, and I would have known exactly what he wanted. She basically just caused more heartburn and work for all us.

How the fuck do people like this get to the top of the heap, anyway?