Conference calls when you have no idea what is going on. Manager is busy busy (which isn’t to say I am not, just less so than she is) so I have to sit in on some calls regarding new stuff we’re setting up, of which I only have a vague idea because 90% isn’t related to our plant and what is I am only vaguely aware (I know it’s in the works, but didn’t know it was this far in the process and several projects are moving into testing phases and needing data from us right now when I am also trying to pull data from SAP that is like pulling teeth)… Why do they need me now that I know what I need to test? This call is after the original call which has even less to do with me. Especially on my usual lunch hour because they are ahead of us and ALWAYS forget that so after lunch for them is lunch for us. Grr.
Listen moronic without a clue project manager. When we’re discussing two options for resolving a problem and I make a recommendation for option B and you respond with “I can’t support your planning assumptions that leaves us in a risky position for capacity we are not doing that, please take care of this asap” I am not insane to take that as a decision to go ahead with Option A.
Also, when you reply to me with the words “That’s not what I said reread my email” it makes me want to shove said email down your throat.
You should also note that screaming loudly to an evergrowing distribution list that your problem is mine does not make it so. Nice try however. I have never in my life seen more passive aggressive escalation. “Looping in xxx for visibility”,“Looping in xxx to update” Pfft, lets be honest - “Copying my boss so she can support me in my temper tantrum”
Why, oh why don’t people ever think about the little people?!?!?!
Back in April, we learned that the State, in all its wisdom, had shopped out the medical care for the Counties and someone had offered to do the work of caring for people in long term care better than the county dept. (won’t get into loud shouting about this decision, its done.) At that time, I started asking my boss about the medical records. I’ve been there and know how to count. I knew that if they boxed up their records and gave them to me, there would be at least 500 boxes. I don’t have room.
I suggested that the company who was taking over would need those records. As far as I know, nobody has contacted them.
I printed out the legal regulations that said that the state “owned” those records and that we should call them. I could have stood on a street corner and offered them out as religious tracts for all the attention they received.
I worried that I would have to move 500 boxes in a van that only holds 40 boxes and would be expected to do it in 3 days, so asked if facilities could be involved.
Bossly pats on the head about me worrying too much. Nobody would expect me to do that. The PTB would be sure that I had a place to put the boxes and lots of help and time.
Fast forward to August. I’ve received lots of pats on the head from everyone involved. Don’t worry your silly head about this Flatlined, we know what we are doing. Nobody has contacted the new company or the state. I don’t have the authority to do it. They are buying a new building and I can store the boxes there. Everytime I’m at that department, they ask when I’m going to start picking up their boxes. I’ve counted 300 boxes by that time and 400 full file cabinets.
Last Wednesday, they closed on the building. I started begging for keys. Promises were made. I was so frustrated on Friday that I asked my boss, “so, is this a for real promise, or one like the guy promises he won’t cum in my mouth.”
I get the keys on Thursday, I will have a very nice office worker to help me. Small female who wears flowing dresses and fake flowers in her waist length, flowing hair. She looked pretty horrified that she was going to have to help me, and we both wondered what horrible mistake she had made to get this sort of punishment.
Oh, all of the boxes need to be moved out by Monday, so that facilities can move the furniture out. That building has to be empty by the 1st.
Every time I read one of your posts about government stupidity, it makesme want to go down and hug the wonderful district court file clerks I deal with. Even the Ichabod Crane looking sourpuss.
flatlined, maybe you should consider asking for future head-pats in writing…
In our defense, we give wonderful customer service. The tax payers won’t know how messed up everything is. I’m the one who will be moving those boxes, and if the company who now owns them asks for a file from the pile, I will drop everything to find it.
But…don’t hug your clerks. Write a nice letter to their bosses and send it to the top of the food chain. Hugs and food are nice, a letter in our personal folder is much better.
How the fuck am I supposed to help my clients if I have no idea what my clients DO!
It’s not a question, damnit. If it was a question, the answer would be “you fucking well can’t”.
We need backstory.
Hopefully while you’re still mad.
I’m currently working in the “internal customer service desk” (ICSD for short) for one of Spain’s biggest companies. This company started life government-owned; nowadays it’s supposed to be private but it still does many things as if it belonged to the government, and there are laws specifically written for it.
Last year someone realized that the six teams in their ICSD didn’t know what others were doing, that many of them have no idea why they do what they do, that there are no process maps, that what computer manuals exist are obsolete. They brought in Big Consulting Firm Number Nine (henceforth, BCFNN) to help them reorganize the ICSD, in hopes of eventually achieving clarity (I’ve been practicing my corporatespeak). BCFNN had a bright idea: they figured that what’s needed is a seventh team in ICSD. Of course, the team itself went for bid, and the bid wasn’t won by BCFNN, it was won by one of the Big Four (BF from now on).
I’m part of that seventh team.
Between a single word being used in five different ways by any five person you talk to (even in the course of the same conversation), the documentation being a mess, the love of “but don’t let them know” (don’t let them know your whole team is self-employed subcontractors, don’t let that guy know his team’s contract is up for bids soon, don’t let them know you don’t know how the compnay works - even though they’ve been here for two years and still don’t know it themselves they’re supposed to believe you do know everything) and the general obliqueness which I think is just the bosses’ way of trying to look like they “know something and don’t want you to know” when they actually “don’t have the foggiest”, this place is already in my list of The Three Worst Organized Places I’ve Been In - after less than two months. Those Swiss From Hell at the top will be hard to dislodge, but #2 (another Spanish privatized company) may be getting bumped down.
And in those other two, at least I could ask “ok, how do you do things here?” In this one, that’s not allowed 
So, how am I supposed to find out what the company’s non-IT-workers do, and to help improve their processes and ours, if I can’t even ask “what’s the process?”? No idea, but damn I think I’m going to make a Note To Self to avoid working for privatized Spanish companies… 
Oh, some of those people who aren’t supposed to know we’re subcontractors?
- Years ago I gave a short course at BF. Seven of my students are now working for Yet Another Consulting Firm; they’re my direct contacts in one of those other six teams.
- My main contact in another of the teams? Turns out we were coworkers in another job; we were in different teams but yep, we’ve had drinks together before. And mid-morning snacks, and lunch, and tea, and dinner (both in restaurants and in private homes), and… sheesh, the one meal we never had together is breakfast
- Another contact from a third team? Oh well, hi, long time no see. We’ve been together at a certain client. Twice: years ago when that client was installing SAP (he was part of the stable team, I covered a medical), then last July (I was helping with a slump they were having, he was wrapping up a project). We have the same agent, btw, but our supposed employers are different consulting firms.
Other than that no, nobody here knows my team is all subcontractors, nobody here knows contracts are up for bids, nobody here knows that things are “in flux” (Brownian motion would be a better description, I think) or that contracts are up for bids every X months. But most of all, it’s a good thing the real workers don’t really need IT to know its ass from its head. If they did, the company’s assets would have blown up years ago.
My god, you deserve every peseta (okay, euro) you get for doing an impossible job.
Thank you for the venting! I’m going to go kiss the floor where I work. And when the inevitable pissiness happens today, I’m going to think “Hey, at least I’m not trying to organize a privatized Spanish company!”
And thanks also for the mental image of a company in “Brownian Motion”. Still chuckling.
Hey head teller? I realize you’re a lazy, spoiled-brat, entitled princess and all, but would it really kill you to take 30 seconds out of your internet surfing to tell me who is on the phone before you just blindly transfer the call to me? That way, I don’t know, maybe I can pull the member files before I pick up so I don’t have to immediately put them back on hold again?
I may not have a job to keep griping about if this current pace of people closing their accounts because they hate the new system too keeps up…
I come in today and find out that IT has reworked their filters for websites over the weekend. Some of them I don’t go on that often but I’m testing them all out right now to see what’s been modified.
Failblog: blocked (Site Category: Questionable)
A Magic the gathering message board: blocked (Site Category: Games)
A super sekrit website that dared not be named here: blocked (Site Category: Parked_Domains)
Craigslist: blocked (Site Category: Shopping)
Groupon: blocked (Site Category: Shopping)
Livejournal: blocked (Site Category: Social_Network)
Internet Movie Database: coached.
TV tropes: coached
THE FRIGGIN SDMB: COACHED. This means that every so often a warning comes up saying it’s coached and asking if I want to go through to the page. Hooray.
I’m sure there’s more. That’s all I’ve tested thus far.
Just had an improptu internal meeting at work, where we reviewed the amount/quality each of us has received and reached the following conclussion:
“hey, if we’re supposed to do nothing, cool. Just give us the ‘for morons’ instructions (click this button, click this other) rather than general ones (update the status in all required systems). We’ll do our best to avoid snoring during our at-work naps, and then use the extra awake off-work hours to do fun things.”
Dear deadbeat non paying patient:
I’ve sent you three notices in addition to leaving multiple messages about your bill. Yet when you call back it is only to acknowledge that your bill is way overdue then pose stalling questions about WHY you have a balance just so you don’t have to pay it til you receive an acceptable explanation. It’s called an EXPLANATION OF BENEFITS form and it comes directly to you from your crappy insurance company. If you can read you should be able to understand why you have a bill. Aside from that, how many damn times to i have to send letters to you explaining your bill?? Do I need to come to your house and break it down using flashcards and crayons???
Just pay your damn bill and quit living off the rest of society you useless waste of oxygen and tax dollars.
+1
Also to the patient who claims, What bill? I never got a bill.
Lady, I’ve PERSONALLY sent you a notice every four weeks since NOVEMBER 2010. It’s notated on your billing card AND in the database of the computer that prints them. And they go out by first class mail, and not one of them has been returned as undeliverable and I refuse to believe the Post Office has just happened to lose ten bills in a row. :mad: So stop this crap and pay the bill!
NOTE: we are ridiculously easy on giving discounts and allowing payments over time. If you sent in, oh, $20 a month we’d never hassle you even if it took forever to pay it off. Just stop lying to me!
Dear Bossman:
When you praise me for simple things it comes off like you are astounded that I can actually do my job. I am not a child. I need professional respect, not a cookie and a pat on the head. The depth of your tone-deafness is something to behold.
TPTB have finally realized that we are woefully understaffed and have decided to hire a new teller. So we put up a sign on our marquee that says we’re hiring. The first two people to come in with resumes have been real winners.
First person steals our phone book (WTF?) and the second one couldn’t figure out how to open our front door. Guess the big PULL sign on the door didn’t help. :smack:
Ok, so … rinsing out your recyclables? That’s one thing. It is, as Martha would say, a good thing.
Washing your soda can and leaving it upside-down in the communal dish rack to dry before tossing it into the recycling bin? Now you’re just washing trash. Seriously - recyclables are just trash with a different destination.
And yes, I did post this in the right thread. Know why? Because I work with Teh Crazy!
What I don’t understand is the people who leave plastic spoons and knives in the lunch room sink. At least I don’t think one person could go through that many. These things are not recyclable, and if they were, they’re already clean enough to go into the bin.
Do you think that the sink is a trash can? Are you intending to wash and reuse them, but just never get around to it? Are you generously allowing co-workers the opportunity to wash are reuse your used plastic? For pity sake, just throw them away.
I pit the stupid bitch at work that keeps throwing out the plastic spoon I saved so I wouldn’t need a new one to stir my next cup of coffee. Also the morons who keep using MY spot (the sink) to save their spoons. Get your own spot morons, if we all use the sink how are we supposed to keep track of which spoon is which?