Workplace griping, anyone?

The BBQ Pit
2862

I dithered a lot about where to put this post. Its kinda workplace and sorta December rant.

The main warehouse is surrounded by homes. I can see into their back yards and have talked to many of the neighbors. There is one old lady who sweeps her dirt yard. I always talk nice to her, but when I go inside, I say things like “when I retire, if anyone sees me sweeping my yard, please shoot me.”

Yesterday, I went out to smoke and when the lady saw me, she told me to stand there and rushed into her house. When she came back, she had a plate of cookies for me. Home baked goodness.

I felt about 2 inches tall.

2863

Tell ya what. If I ever see you sweeping your yard, I’ll

ask to to bake me a plate of cookies. :slight_smile:

2864

I disagree completely! You’ve just been handed the opportunity to watch a personal prejudice come crashing down! It’s completely liberating!

I’m an average white guy from a great family, I couldn’t have had a better childhood or a better life, though I gotta stop breaking my leg and getting involved with certain personality types, but I digress.

One thing is for sure, I carry a bag of preconceptions, misconceptions and prejudices like every other human being does in this world. What I have learned that is joy above all else is to savor those moments when I find out I was wrong, that the crotchety old guy has a heart of gold, that who I thought was a homeless mental patient can whip anyone at chess, when I am in the worst shithole neighborhood in the dead of winter the young lady asks if I would like some hot coffee.

It’s these moments in life I treasure more than any other as I am allowed to see something in people I did not expect.

I bet those cookies were great!

2865

Lady who just barged into my waiting room: I hope you find someone who’ll stop to give you some honest advice about your job hunting tactics, because I was too stunned to put forth an effort.

You opened with asking for a business card and pushing an envelope towards me, practically on your way out the door already. Not hello, not introducing yourself, not saying why you were there. Asking for a business card right away is a way that salespeople tend to cold call around here, or get names to try to bluff one’s way past a receptionist, that kind of thing.

I told you, truthfully, that I didn’t have one here and that I’m (currently*) a one-person office so I wasn’t sure why you’d want mine. Only then did you say that you were job hunting and wanted to leave a resume (the envelope, which you pushed forward again).

You then looked at my keyboard and at the stack of cards on the corner, and asked for one of those, and started to reach in the window a bit, so I reflexively put my hands to block them. Those aren’t my cards, those are cards from my contacts at other offices and companies, and I had to explain that to you.

I told you our institution’s job website, and you wrote that down, so I hope that’ll help you.

I would criticize your not even dressing somewhat nicely, but considering that this is the absolute worst week to try to get your “foot in the door” anywhere around here - it seems like most of the building was gone all week - not too many people will see you anyway.

I know times are tough for job hunters. That’s even more reason to make sure you stand out for good reasons. We need people who know how to relate to others in all situations, and will treat patients and their families with patience and understanding, not like they’re just another number. So when you half-rush into my office and expect a business card in exchange for a resume without any introduction or anything, I wonder what you’ll be like on those busy days when you’ve been running all day and a new patient comes in, and you have to treat them with importance and find out if they understand what is being requested of them.

  • My office is hiring one person. Don’t underestimate the effect a receptionist might have on hiring, especially if that person only acts like a receptionist (because people accidentally wander into my office a lot) and has lots of other important duties as their actual job. (Not to leave out those trusted receptionists who have the ear of their bosses, of course.) I still couldn’t take a resume, but a job hunter that gave me a good feeling might get pointers.
2866

Damn you, Verifone. Damn you to hell.
One of our stores is having issues that requires the Verifone Help Desk remoting into the system. They tried through their dedicated phoneline, but it failed, so they asked that the line be moved to another device. Only, if they go through that device, it takes the store down for 45 minutes or longer.
This is when I got involved. The store called me and said, “What can we do?”
“Well, I can open up the specific ports they need and let them remote in through the magice of the internet! Bonus: If they go in this way, it won’t take the store down!”
I remote into the store’s router, forward the ports Verifone used last time a situation like this came up, and had the store call Verifone. All should be good.
The store tells me, “They said they can’t connect that way. They have to dial in.”
“Did they say why?”
“No.”
“Okay, let me talk to them.”
ringy-dingy, ringy-dingy
“Case # 2 12 1 8 - 1 12 1 8, existing call.”
“Yes, if you will please connect the dedicated phone line to the-”
“No, that’s why I’m calling. I want you to SSH in like you have done in the past.”
Hold.
Hold.
Hold.
“We cannot do that.”
“Why not, you’ve done it before?”
“I checked with our high-level support and they said we cannot do that.”
“Why not, though? I have had this exact same situation in the past, and you did. Is it policy or something?”
Hold.
Hold.
Hold.
“Yes, Mark? I checked with th high level support again and they said we cannot because the IP you gave us is a public IP and that would not be the actual IP of the equipment.”
“Right. That’s why I forwarded the ports. If you can’t connect, just let me know. I was going off my list of ports you use from about a year ago, and there’ve been revisions, so that might have changed.”
“Yes, so if you will connect a phone line to-”
“Again, no. I cannot take this store down at the moment. Please put me through to the next tier.”
“Please hold.”
hold.
hold.
hold.
“Yes, Mark?”, says the same guy.
“… Yes?”
“If you will give me the IP address, they told me to try it.”
“Okay, good. It is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx”
“Okay. Please hold.”
hold.
hold.
hold.
“Okay, that did not work, so you will definitely need to hook up a phone line.”
“I cannot do that now. Please escalate or at least check to verify I have the right ports open. I opened Port1, Port2, Port3, and Port4.”
“Yes, that is not going to work. Please let me know when you have the phoneline connected.”
“We’ll have to call back.”
“Okay, thank you for calling Verifone.”
yargh!

2867

Well, stupid me.

Just started a job 3 months ago. When I started, they gave me the benefits package in a sealed envelope from an outsourced benefits company. OK fine. I found the 401K info, and noticed a 90 day waiting period. Fine, waited 90 days, and researched the funds I wanted to contribute to.

Faxed in my paperwork, and then got a phone call with a stunning revelation. THE COMPANY DOESN’T HAVE A 401K PROGRAM. I asked just what were all those papers about then. “Oh, I don’t know why they put those in there, because we don’t do the 401 thing. We thought about removing them from the packets, but then the envelope wouldn’t look so nice.” :dubious:

I’m really pissed. I took this job after a LONG unemployment period. Pay is about half of before. The health insurance is really low end, and I ended up getting on my wife’s insurance. I was hoping to at least start dumping cash into my retirement, but apparantly not at this job. :frowning:

Guess I’ll start looking again. Grrr.

2868

Holy shit! That’s really evil of them. :frowning:

2869

She wasn’t a job hunter. She’s on unemployment benefits, and wants to stay on those benefits as long as possible. To do this, she needs to make a certain number of attempts to get a job each week, and she is short of that number this week. She wanted the card for the information, and she dropped off her resume so that she could claim an honest attempt. However, as you noted, her appearance and behavior were not really what a serious job hunter would present.

2870

She didn’t leave the resume. With your info, maybe not getting a card back was the reason why.

Her resume was also in a sealed, regular-sized envelope with just “resume” written on the front. Now I’m finding myself wondering whether there was actually one in there. That’s probably unkind of me, but when your persona comes across as trying to hustle (in the method of salespeople or worse) and you’re doing nothing to actually present yourself as a job hunter, it leads one to other musings on intent.

2871

I bet they tasted like dirt. :stuck_out_tongue:

No, seriously, that was a great story.

2872

They tasted great. When I saw her yesterday, I gave her my thank you note through the fence. She told me that the cookies were from Polish recipes and that she remembered her Dad telling about passing notes and food through fences. She thought it was funny that we were doing it here and now. She also showed me her tattoo and said that she was too young then/too old now to remember it.

I really felt like a churl then. I’ll never ever make fun of old ladies who sweep their dirt again.

2873

Happy New Year, everybody! I just want to say that even though I’m no longer a part of the workforce, I enjoy all of your stories and read them with interest and keep 'em coming. As my New Year’s contribution to the thread, I’d like to show you how a honey badger eats a pistachio.

Cause the Honey Badger’s badass. And don’t give a shit.

2874

That made me laugh. A lot! I think that I really, REALLY need a Honey Badger :slight_smile:

2875

I feel an epic folk song coming on - brought in rattlesnakes to clear out the rats, brought in honey badgers to clear out the rattlensnakes, but what would you bring in to clear out the honey badgers? Israeli commandos?

2876

From what I’ve heard, Israeli commandos are not only bad ass, they are smart. I doubt any of them would take on my backpack Honey Badger :slight_smile: Maybe we could throw PETA people in to save the rats and keep the honey badgers fed? Honey badger doesn’t care what it eats…so might enjoy a big snack instead of a whimpy ol rattler.

Protected snakes would be saved, rats would go on eating and chewing…OMG, chewing…the wooden pallets are starting to sag because the rats are chewing on them. I don’t go out there anymore, but the pics I see are very alarming.

Kevin, who is in favor of flame throwers, brought a box to show the BOS. Of course, he picked the stinkiest, most chewed up box. I got called in to explain how my boxes were in that condition. One of the things I’ve learned in life is to cover my ass with so much paperwork that I can’t be seen.

I like lawsuits better. I just have to get dressed up once and the Judge will tell me to go away. This has now become political back biting and finger pointing. Its not my fault and I can prove it.

Skips off happily, singing “its not my job and not my problem and there is nothing I can do about the destroyed papers without money”.

2877

I like the way Kevin thinks. You can get rid of the rats AND destroy any boxes that are completely chewed up.

2878

There was a fire in one of the units. Unhappy update, it didn’t spread properly. I’m guessing that the RatKing sent his minions out to pee on the flames. From what I heard, law enforcement thinks it was a homeless person trying to cook food.

But…now that we know that homeless people have found the unoccupied part of the Lair, fires will be easy to explain.

rubs hands together happily

(I’m sure that if any fires start during the work day, it will be due to homeless people running away when they hear activity…not because any of us are doing anything illegal.)

2879

I was thinking that maybe you could use Shredder Guy to your advantage - drop an idea in his ear that there might be some money in it if that warehouse got…taken care of. Be careful of your plausible deniability, though. :slight_smile:

2880

Not so much a gripe as a freak out. Boss was just taken away in an ambulance (migraine, bad one) leaving me to inform her boss she’s ill and to deal with what I can for my very first year end as an accountant*.

I hope she gets well soon, and not just because I’m freaking out and need her help (or will, I can deal for the moment) but because I like her and she really didn’t look well.

*There is just the two of us in this office, the rest are at head office, so I am currently unofficially on my own. Yeep! I know what needs doing today though.

2881

Had December 24-25 off from my weekend job. Boss calls Monday to touch base and cheerfully ends with, “See you Saturday.”

Saturday I walk through the door and find nearly all the furniture gone, walls bare. What’s going on? “Oh, I sold the business,” boss replies in the most flippant tone you can imagine.

She made the deal just after getting off the phone with me Monday. No head’s up, no warning, no fucking respect. She chatted with several other people about it during the week so it’s not as if she was trying to keep it quiet. One of them even asked, “What about Tess?” She assured them she’d already spoken to me.

Over the years I’ve rearranged schedules, worked solo when she wandered off to do god knows what and put up with her control-freak tendencies. This is how she says thanks.

I’d call it a slap in the face, but it takes a little effort and intent to slap someone.