Today at work we received a sample of a foam piece meant to fit inside boots. We had gotten one the other day but it was expensive so the customer wanted “cheaper foam”. Our vendor said they had a less dense foam that would work and made another sample. Well, the sales rep in charge of this account was opening the box at the front desk where it had been dropped off, and he took out a long, grey cylindrical foam piece. Nothing spectacular.
Another sales rep walked by just then and said “What is that thing?”
Rep number 1 says “It’s a cheaper foam.”
Rep 2 “A what?”
Rep 1 “A cheaper foam. CHEAPER!”
Rep 2 “I don’t get it.”
Rep 1 “The customer wants it CHEAP! CHEAP! CHEAP!”
Rep 2 “Oh okay, CHEEP!”
Rep 1 “CHEEP!”
Reps 3 4 and 5 wander in just then…
Next thing we knew, 5 sales reps are standing around taking turns tossing this foam piece at each other screeching “CHEEP! CHEEEEEP!” over and over again like some weird assembly of overgrown, featherless birds. They finally stopped and dispersed without a word and the secretary and I traded wordless stares before getting back to work.
Pretty much a normal workday. But it did make me wonder just how far down the crazy scale my workplace was. Anyone have crazies at work as a regular turn of events?
Today the guy who sits next to me made a giant poster of our CEO’s head on Commander Adama’s body, then put up one of those little placards with a price tag, just like the “real” art that hangs in our hallways.
That kind of crazy I can totally see but fingers crossed, touch wood, throw salt over left shoulder the workplace griping thread crazy is almost completely missing from my office since the new CIO was hired. It’s…odd. Scary. Almost too good to believe.
We’re currently running games challenges every Friday with prizes. Remote control cars a couple weeks ago, trivia last Friday etc.
Let’s see, I once worked at a hotel where among the staff, our major project was papering a file on the Assistant Manager, who among other trangressions gave herpes to one of our cocktail waitresses. We were told not to discuss the guest who ripped his room apart because the “little men in the Uboats in the harbor” were out to get him.
Then there was the movie theatre with three owners, one of which was in the witness protection program, one was a sphere and sweated profusely in the dead of winter, and the third was so nasty that when she died, I could have made a mint selling mirrors at her funeral.
Where is my workplace on the crazy meter? Well, I work in a Las Vegas casino with a bunch of stagehands. I’d say we’re pegging the meter on most days and even on a slow day we prolly go above “Morton Downey Jr. Show with guest Rev. Al Sharpton” crazy.
The owner has put his daughter and her husband in charge of the company. They don’t care for each other, and contradict each other’s instructions. Daily. Putting all of us in the middle.
I’m a sole proprietor of a retail business. My mood is probably the most defining factor, but I do get an occasional influx of crazy from a customer. Fortunately, that’s never permanent.
Caught my boss pouring his day-old coffee back in the community pot, swirling it around and pouring “fresh” cups. He saw me and grinned proudly: “See? I reheat the coffee with no waste!”
So, yeah, maybe-not-insane-but-certainly-sociopathic workplace.
The crazy scale is pretty low right now. I have worked at a place where the employee motto was “You don’t have to take drugs to work here, but it helps”.
I wouldn’t say so much crazy, as ignorant or stupid.
We have a business group that has a habit of deciding what they want to do and when they want to do it on IT-heavy projects, and then when they don’t consult IT, and we either deliver something other than what they want on time, or what they asked for late, they pin the blame on IT.
Or worse, some customer asks for certain reports, our business types say yes and promise a date, and then come to us and ask for them by that date, and we say “Uh… the system you had to have 2 years ago doesn’t even record that data.”
And somehow it’s IT’s fault that we didn’t read their minds 2 years into the future and anticipate this reporting need.
Or another favorite is to ask for something with an unreasonable date, get told that the process is to submit a request, get it prioritized, etc… Then they decide that they don’t want to work within the system, so they throw a shit-fit and blame any and all upcoming problems of their initiative on IT because we can’t “meet their deadline”, and then we get all sorts of pressure from higher-ups and excess scrutiny because we’re somehow not doing what we’re supposed to, despite this other asshole having gone around the processes meant to ensure we’re all working on the right things for the right people.
That’s the kind of ignorant/stupid stuff that happens quite often where I work.
Somewhere between “batshit crazy” and “crazy as a shithouse rat”, currently.
A longtime mentor once said this to me, and it has indeed proved prophetic:
“The first generation starts the business; the second generation grows it; the third generation destroys it (usually in the process of selling out, and grabbing everything possible in that process.)”
The business I work for is in the third.
I went from years and years of long-term Government Crazy to just starting my new job. My biggest fear is that I’ll screw it up before I acclimate to what appears to be a very sane environment. Kinda like the bends.
Examples from my previous job:
The IT headquarters was the cheapest rent they could find. It used to be a children’s hospital. The floors on the 2nd floor felt wobbly, the toilet were the right size for kids (10 inches off the ground)…they fixed that by putting 4" elevator toilet seats on them. Poo has a hangtime, and if you’re not careful, you could end up peeing on the back of your pants.
For ‘bring your kids to work’ day, the had them meet in the morning on the ‘garden’ level…named so because it we HAD a garden, that’s the level it would be on…you know, the 1st floor. The meeting in the afternoon was in the ‘cyber cafe’…a.k.a. the Lunch room. It’s got two microwaves…but we can’t plug one of them in as the wiring won’t take the load. There is nothing particularly Cyber or Cafe about it.
We’re a state IT organization that has a concierge. :rolleyes: (well, they are…I’m not.)
Can someone please explain?