Ooh, good! In the Drama That Is The Workplace Gripes Thread, that’s some spine-tingling foreshadowing there… [cue creepy organ music] Bwaaaah-ha-haaaaa!
In case we lose Shreddie as a source of amusement, we look forward to the eventual reveal of Dr. G’s Big Boss’s true nature.
I can’t wait… will it be Gambling On His Kids’ Soccer Games with the Christmas Bonus funds? Swinging from his office window in his Chicken Man superhero costume? Or just Frequent Urination in the lobby planter? I hope it’s not something harmless (if it’s just that he used to be a Rockette, I’m going to feel let-down).
On a happier note, we had a client bring in a rescue momma pitbull and 7 babies this afternoon. Apparently, 4 days ago she was dropped off at a shelter with the instructions of “just put her down, we don’t want her anymore.” One of our clients heard about this through a rescue grapevine, and agreed to foster momma and her litter. No one had any idea how far along she was … she had the babies yesterday! She originally had 9, but 1 was stillborn and 1 didn’t live long. She has 7 beautiful, strong, healthy-looking pibble baby boys (all of them!) and we got to see them today. Nothing cuter than wrinkly little newborns.
BTW, if anyone within a 2-hour radius of Indianapolis would like to adopt a pibble baby in about 8 weeks, PM me and I’ll send you the information about the rescue.
Long and complicated story short…SG’s protection retired. She has gotten rehired, hurray for double dipping, but she is no longer in my food chain. She also has a new job and is won’t want to upset the apple cart while HR tries to deal with SG. HR never had an emotional commitment to SG and now that they are having to see him 20 hours a week, are doing what they need to do to get rid of him.
SG dropped a box on his foot when his hip started hurting so badly that he couldn’t do his primary job. SG has had his fun sitting around and bothering the people who have the ability to give him the boot. In a way, I feel sad for SG. He honestly has no clue…but I don’t feel sorry enough to ask HR to send him back.
I used to think that wolverines were the most awesome critters in the world, but Honey Badger climbs trees to attack King Cobras. I really want one to fling at idiots.
The best part is that Dr. G will be able to watch the flames start happening at her last place of work while witnessing the meltdown internally. My vote is that the toilets will back up because Big Boss didn’t buy industrial grade garbage disposals and the last disappointing cashier’s fingernails got stuck.
Hurray for foster homes. Hurray for vets like yours who help homeless pets.
Way back in the dark ages when I was young I managed a boarding kennel. One year about this time (i.e. right before Christmas) someone brought in a Poodle mix to board until the new year. She really needed to be groomed which is why I had no idea she was really pregnant, and she had the pups that night in the dark of a strange place. Is anyone surprised that the phone number the owner gave us wasn’t any good? I took her and the pups home and later found them all homes, her after getting her spayed.
I suppose that’s why he abandoned her at the kennel rather than at the shelter, but it still doesn’t make it any better. I even asked him if he wanted her to be groomed - if he’d gone with that I’d have known she was pregnant! Well, maybe not because I wouldn’t have done it that soon, but still! :mad:
Congrats Dr. Girlfriend! And I second Cat Whisperer’s advice to hang on to that feeling about the Big Boss - keep your eyes peeled.
For my rant, a little background is that I process gifts at a charitable institution and so this week is just an absolute shit-show of end-of-year giving. Awesome cause it’s great to see how many people believe in our mission and such, but it’s hard to stay ahead of the incoming mail avalanche.
The rant: GODDAMNIT financial services companies you need to get your heads out of your godforsaken asses. I have had almost 20 checks come in in the last month from retirement distributions, mutual fund distributions, stock sales and other similar types of giving, WITHOUT ANY GODDAMN DONOR NAMES ON THEM!!! I got another 30-40 with proper attribution from the same financial services companies so I know it’s possible. Why the fuck would you send a check, much less a >$1,000 check, with no information as to who we should credit the donation to??? What’s more, why the fuck don’t you have any contact info on the check so I can call and ask you??? I have to randomly google your name and call totally wrong departments to track down a number for someone who can look up the info I need. Then of course due to privacy concerns you can’t tell me jack shit, but at least you can ask the donor to call me an claim the donation, which is all I can ask I guess. This is totally irresponsible shit and I can’t understand how we all trust you with billions of freaking dollars. And of course if we just cash the check and don’t find the donor then we’re the bad guys who don’t properly acknowledge gifts. I do not have time for this when we’re getting between 500 and 1000 envelopes a day and I’m a department of one.
And yes, donors often tell us to expect a check, but even when they do specify an amount and where it will be from it sometimes doesn’t match up due to percentage fees taken off the top that they don;t know about beforehand, and byzantine merger structures that mean that the company cutting the check has a different name as the one they talk to. This is a new issue for me - I’ve been in charge of these donations since 2008 but haven’t received these mysterv checks with this frequency before, but i can’t tell if it’s due to regulatory changes or just the fact that this is the first year since then that anyone’s been able to give from retirement accounts due to the markets coming back around.
AAAAARGHHH!
We have Monday off but I’m considering going in for 3-4 hours to get some heavy-duty data entry done to get ahead of the curve, especially cause we start sending end-of-year reminder emails on Tuesday and I’d rather not be clogging inboxes of people who already sent their checks in. Did I mention that I build and send the emails and manage the online giving in addition to dealing with the paper checks and credit cards by mail? Well yeah I do. This time of year is madness, but I have a plan set up pretty well now that it’s my fourth go-round and I get a lot of help a few hours at a time from my lovely co-workers so it will all work out. This whole mystery check nonsense is really grinding my gears though. It’s a good thing I actually care about the mission, as if I was just neutral about it or if I had a similar stress/compensation ratio at a for-profit company I would have walked on Wednesday.
Why kill yourself, just to give somebody credit (who doesn’t care enough about claiming credit for a donation)?
I’d just treat them like an anonymous donation. If someone followed up on this in my case, I’d roll my eyes and think “Sheesh, can’t they just accept the donation and move on?”
Unless there’s a crucial reason – Do you get in trouble with the IRS? Or does your organization get something out of it? Do you want a name to put on your email list or something?
I’d vote for anything you can do to make your job easier, esp at this time of year.
And what was up with “…and his ‘companion’, The Lovely Margo Lane”? I heard that dozens of times, listening to The Shadow in front of an old tube radio as a kid. Even then, I wondered if there was hanky-panky going on.
Back in October, I started betting people as to when the first snow would happen. It was a high stake game, I bet 5 people a nickle each. We did a lot of trash talking over it. I lost. I paid up. People spent a lot of time rubbing it in about me being wrong by 4 days. What’s the point of winning if you can’t rub it in, right?
Boss and I got called to HR yesterday. We are not allowed to gamble at work. It doesn’t matter what the stakes were, or that we used it as a team building exercise. We are not allowed to gamble. I was in trouble because I started the pool and boss was in trouble because she allowed it to happen and encouraged it. After we signed our write ups, agreed to never do anything like that again and left, Bosslady said some bad words because we both know that SG was the one who threw us under the bus.
I also work in a government office with strict anti-gambling rules. This is the sort of issue that I would have noted as “Not significant - no follow-up” and filed, and would be totally prepared to justify if called on it. Somebody’s knickers need to be untwisted.
It sounds to me as if SG is trying to lay some groundwork. He might think that he can claim a whistleblower’s protection if he reports little things like this. And he might be able to build a case. So, SG needs to be reported when he does even the least little thing out of line.
Oh, believe you me I’m back-burnering this shit at this point, tracking down the names can wait til after the first of the year. But track them down I must, as there is about a .001% chance that any of these are actually anonymous gifts. I have a stack of letters from donors saying that a check is on the way from somewhere or other - some listing amounts and some not - and that’s what I need to match up with the checks by calling both parties. Our average donor age is I think 76 or 80 years old and we have a highly personal touch kind of thing going on, with many actually having a relationship with our org (or our founder personally) going back decades. They will be hurt and/or pissed if they don’t get a thanks promptly, and I’m really not gonna blame 85-year old Mrs. Jones for not being able to figure out how to get whatever random servicing company she has to deal with to put her name on the check she had them cut out of her IBM pension - the servicing company should at least give me a goddamn phone number on the check! I mean, some of them don’t even have a return address beyond a random PObox - what if the check came mangled and we needed a new one? I should just mail it back into the ether? We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars in some cases, though admittedly the really big ones are easier to track. It just seems an irresponsible way to throw money around.
Another kind of organization with a more impersonal style could definitely get away with putting the money in as anonymous, and I will have to do that with any checks I can’t match with donors, but at my org it just isn’t how we work. All thank-yous are very personably written and signed by someone (who in the org signs depends on the amount and other factors). Also, we have a magazine that goes out several times a year to people who donate above a certain level, and believe you me those donors watch their mailboxes for it and call me if it doesn’t show - which it won’t if they didn’t get credit for their donation cause it came in unmarked!!!
Basically, graciously thanking donors is basic best practices in the non-profit world - it’s analogous to backing up your data for techies or double counting your drawer if you handle cash or making sure your cows have enough to eat if you’re a farmer. Basic essential shit that I need to do to do my job well, and these companies are making it that much harder, so I gotta whine.
And as for Lamont, a lady doesn’t kiss and tell :o
I have voted, early and often, that SG be fed into the shredder. Feet first so his agony lasts longer. And I don’t see any reason to tell HR how SG disappeared.
Oh man, would every single company in Spain be in trouble…
Between pools on soccer results / when is Soandso delivering her baby / how much will Baby Soandso weigh; collective quinielas (national soccer bets system); Christmas lottery participaciones (a business or NPO buys several tickets of the same number and prints out tickets stating the number, a small amount you bet on that number and a small donation, then they sell these secondary tickets); and lottery-linked ehr, lotteries (you’re given tickets for being a jolly good customer and the winning number is the National Lottery winning number of the date listed) - I have troubles thinking of a Spanish organization with more than two people where people don’t gamble on a regular basis.
The coworkers who gamble together hope to win together or some such
I totally understand this. Doners want to be thanked. They might say they don’t, but they really do. Any group that depends on donations knows this and some of us are really good at sucking up to the people who write the checks. I also suck up to anyone who drops their pocket change in the jar.
I only have one write up for each problem. It would take 3 write ups for the same problem to get me fired.
So far, I have learned that I cannot gamble. I cannot give my favorite IT guy a friendly grope and he cannot touch me. I am not allowed to encourage people to sit on box lids and slide down the icy loading ramp. I’m also not allowed to try to throw idiots off the loading dock. (I do feel badly about that one, while my minion was trying to break it up, his favorite shirt got torn.)
Oddly enough, nobody involved complained about my actions, it was just one witness. Now there are 2.
I totally agree with this. You should not TRY to throw idiots off the loading docks. You should SUCCEED in throwing idiots off the loading docks. Perhaps that’s what they meant?
