Now my cow-orkers have been fairly decent (so far) this year, but they still have their faults, so let me share them with you. I’m an administrative support person, and apparently number one on my list of duties is to read the minds of the staff! Last week, one of my cow-orkers came >< that close to me snapping at him–every time that he passed by my desk, he asked me a question about something, several times without -any- pre-amble–that is, as if he’d been having a conversation with me already (in his head?!) so that naturally I would know what he was talking about. I’m not the only person he has done that with, however, so I’ll let him slide on that, but he still thinks that I can read his mind, as do some of the other cow-orkers.
Also in my duties are keeping the timecards of the staff, all of which are online now, supposedly making it easier to do. Ah technology, isn’t it wonderful?! However, sometimes folks forget to put in their leave slips or take an hour or two the last day of the pay period (yes, even I sometimes skip out an hour earlier on Friday), but by that time, the cards have been signed and the timecard will have to be amended (and even with technology it still takes a couple of pay periods for the leave to “catch up!”).
I also do travel authorizations and vouchers for the staff–that’s all online now too. Yes, amazing technology continues! And yes, it’s easier to do–all (er, most) destinations already are in the system, so we don’t have to look up per diem and lodging costs any longer and naturally the system calculates costs automatically, so no more arithmatic errors (yay!). But … travelers still wait until the last minute to make their arrangements (I’ve had two folks recently who actually went on travel without their authorizations being officially approved, which is supposedly -verboten- but they did it anyway… so no names! LOL); also, the individual traveler is the only one who can -submit- the voucher–I can put it together for them, but it’s up to them to submit it. And this has made for some very unhappy campers, let me tell you. They do get their money back pretty quickly though (two days in most cases, after the voucher is approved!).
I also prepare requisitions for the staff–sometimes, they are for large and expensive projects (my cow-orkers are all project managers); the requisitioning process is also all online now, and the system (which will remain nameless…) is the most convoluted, user-unfriendly system I’ve yet encountered. Once I submit requisitions for the approval process, I’m supposed to keep track of them–and sometimes they have sat in someone’s “in box” awaiting approval for lengthy periods! At a certain point in the process, before our acquisitions department gets the requisition to issue a purchase order, they become “untrackable.” Yet I’m still supposed to know where they are. Have I mentioned yet that I work for the Federal Government?! Even my small purchases, on credit card, have to go through this process, btw. I could do an entire rant on this financial system, but I’ll stop now, this is long enough.
LOL Thanks for listening, if you’ve gotten this far.
