What kind of a person repeatedly changes someone else's Preferences?

The BBQ Pit
1

I didn’t think such a person existed.

My past few weeks of experience with this boss should have made me realize it.

The first time he changed my preferences, I should have realized it. At the time I just thought he was trying to help.

I mean, he helpfully taught us how to use Google, with the “and” and “or” operators, and everything.

(Yes, I know.)

So he probably thought it would help me for him to pick “open search results in new browser window.” And “display 100 results.” I certainly don’t doubt his good intentions.

So I quietly changed them back, once he relinquished my computer. After all, he hired me to research, and I like to research using my preferences. Call me crazy. He probably had just never heard of the “open in new window” option. (In fact I don’t think he’s right-clicked in his life.) (And yes, I would dearly love to use Mozilla or some other non-explorer program, but (a) I don’t think this poor computer could handle another download, and (b) it would quite simply blow the boss’s mind. Which could be fun, actually …)

But then again - today - after I’ve been here, working on this computer, with my preferences, for several months - he sits down again, notices that the preferences aren’t his own, and resets them!!!

I ask you: why? Why, Og, why?
Actually, don’t answer. If you do, you will also be expected to answer for his other behaviour, like:

  • responding to every computer-related query with “Call the computer guy!” So, when it takes me ten … fucking … minutes … to open a file, just like it has every time since I started working here, I call the computer guy, and he says “The computer is fucked, he has to buy a new one,” and I tell the boss that, and the boss says “Tell him to come in anyway” - you know when the computer guy is ready to pick up the boss by the lapels and say “At some point it’s going to start costing you an awful lot to have me in here for $50/hour to tell you to BUY A NEW COMPUTER”, you’ve got a little problem

  • Saving a file on his hard drive. Copying it to the network so I can work on it. Continuing to work on the version on his hard drive. Copying that to a different part of the network so I can work on it and, incidentally, try to match the changes I already made with the new version. Not particularly reassuring me that he won’t continue to make changes to the version still on his hard drive.

Fucking management consultants. That’s an ironic title if I’ve ever heard one.

2

Oh, oh, I almost forgot the habit of “turning off monitors, but not computers, to save power when leaving the office.”

The existence of screen savers must have escaped him.

And the fact that there’s no hot water in the office. Yes, we wash our hands with cold. Yes, they are chapped and painful. But he saves a few bucks.
I better stop, I feel a meltdown coming on.

The irony is, this is the first job I’ve ever had that’s exactly in my field, and I can’t escape fast enough. It didn’t occur to me until just today exactly how ill-suited I am for this position (“this position” being “working for this man”)

Now, I think I need to go home for a stiff drink.

3

Screen savers don’t save power.

4

Isn’t the point of screen-savers to prevent whatever is one your screen from becoming permantely burnt into the display? At least, I’m fairly sure that was the original intention. They don’t save power, like Futile said. So your boss has a point there.

The rest is still pure stupidity.

5

Doesn’t turning off the computer when you leave over the weekend save power?

6

Yes, but screen savers don’t and you followed up your statement about turning computers off to save electricity with “The existence of screen savers must have escaped him”, implying that they do as well.

7

I call that person Wife. :smiley:

8

Maybe the OP meant Energy Star instead of “screen saver”?

9

How do you not have hot water?? Is there no hot water heater or what?

10

There’s a school of thought that repeatedly turning computers on and off shortens the life of some components. My own observation is that a computer that is regularly shut down will develop problems with the fan in the power supply sooner than a computer that is left running 24/7, but that’s anecdotal. In this house, we turn our screens off at night to save power but leave our computers running all the time. I married my IT guy, and so I tend to take his advice in these matters.

11

Whereas my IT guy I married says it’s important to completely power down the computer to clear the caches, which doesn’t happen if you don’t power down and so your computer runs slower and slower and slower. Especially if you do lots of fancy stuff.

12

Maybe he was trying to “help.”

When my dad got his first computer, I set everything the way I like it, which seemed reasonable since I am the one who will have to fix, update, unravel and generally unhavoc all the havoc I knew was going to ensue at some point or other. It just seemed easier if I had everything set the same on mine and his, so I wouldn’t have to mess around figuring out what was a mistake and what was just “different.”

My sister and her husband came up the next weekend, and the next time I sat down to run a live update on Norton, everything was all screwy. (Well, it seemed that way to me, anyway.) I asked dad if anything weird had happened and he said “no, not as far as I know…” So I just changed everything back and let it go. A couple of weeks later, they were up again and BIL said “Oh, BTW Cheri, dad’s computer got all messed up again, so I fixed it for you.” BIG smile on his face, he had “done a GOOD thing” for me. The light finally dawned. He had reset everything to the way HE likes it. Which was the BETTER way, to his way of thinking.

He meant well, he’s really good people. So I didn’t bean him with the gravy ladle I happened to be holding at the time. :smiley:

13

giggling, and joining the battle of the IT Wives :wink:

The IT guy I married, says both of your IT guys are correct. He advises that there is no need to power down each night, causing (admittedly, minimal) component wear, but that periodic rebooting (say every week or so) can help prevent the slow-down that occurs from usage.

Either way, it isn’t a huge deal, so let’s get back to calling cowgirl’s boss a moron.

14

MY IT exboyfriend, still best friend agrees wtih YOUR IT husband. :smiley:

That is, that both are right under different circumstances.

15

In the U.S. in most states, hot water is a health department requirement in businesses.
Maybe a phone call to the local Health dept. Have the joint shut down for a few days, that would fix his “cost saving” ass.

16

Hm. This computer I was using, the one that takes ten minutes to open a file, probably wasn’t turned off once for years before I arrived. I turn it off regularly now, because it keeps crashing and needing restarting. (The woman I’m replacing was the kind of person who would look to the boss for computer advice, and would never have thought that any advice he gave her would be anything but gospel.) Hmm. That explains a lot. Are there any temp files I should clean out, or anything else I can do? I think I’ve got them all but there’s probably some residual nastiness lurking.

I guess he didn’t want to pay to to have the water heater running. Must cost a few cents a month.

I’d like to call the health department on him, actually! It would give me a great deal of smug pleasure. However, it would be very, very bad for my career if I did, for one thing, and for another, I don’t intend to be there for much longer.

17

He can’t retaliate for you calling the health department (I’m sure you could do so without him knowing it was you, anyways!), that’s illegal.

I have Raynaud’s Syndrome, and in the winter, I can’t wash my hands in icy water, or even handle ice cube trays without oven mitts. If I had to work in an office without hot water, I’d throw a huge shit fit.

18

True, it is illegal, but she’d have to prove that his actions were due to her reporting and not something else. Probably more hassle than she feels it’s worth.

19

I worked at a place where the boss turned off the hot water heater in order to save money, too. We were also told that it was the “ladies’” job to clean up the break room because we were better at that sort of stuff.

I quit.