and, that’s a … good thing?
Eyes turn red…yes, mortal…it is!
Today, OCD girl hit a sink. At the same place that SG hit a toilet. I really, REALLY don’t like writing these reports because I know that Risk Management will call, and then it will move up the food chain until the Board of Supervisors puts in in the agenda.
flatlined, y’all need bathroom fixtures which don’t move around.
I wish I got paid on time, instead of weeks late.
And today, I saw Jane. Who was not wearing her arm sling. When I asked her about it, she said that her doctor had said that she didn’t need to wear it, but she was still using it because it reminded her to not use her arm.
Jane, the attention whore, will be visiting the RatKing’s Lair tomorrow.
Can you get it on video? Would you get in trouble for youtubing choice parts of the visit? Such as her trying to do an Usain after seeing something move.
Please, please, Please?
For that I would have Newegg FedEX you a laptop, webcam and a Sat. uplink..
I would send cookies. Home made. Your choice.
Clients are killing my faith in humanity.
Seriously, we have two forms that are used almost every day by our clients. They’re not long and they’re extremely basic. I should not have to reply to 4 emails every day asking them to specify which of the 15 databases in their environment they want the person to have access to. I should not have to pull teeth to find out which tool they need access to. Here’s a hint: if you have someone who’s going to be a database developer, you should request access to the database development tool, not the remote data entry tool. I cannot read your mind. I can only do what you say on the form.
It’s the “I’m having a problem, can you look into it” emails that say ONLY THAT which really get me.
Ok, you’re having what problem where? There’s this thing called COMMUNICATION that becomes important here. Basic information on your issue, what is happening, and where it is happening might help us actually resolve something.
All I can reply to the above emails is: “I’m going to need some information on what problem you are experiencing and what tools you are using before I can offer any assistance.”
Oh, and “Please reset my password” as the entire text of the email. Ok, which password would that be and for what ID? Besides the fact that I don’t reset passwords, I could at least tell you the right people to be talking to if only I was provided with that very basic information.
“Are there any problems with the system today?” Which system are you talking about?
“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do with this” You could start by reading the instructions (see below in this very email) where we gave you step by step instructions on what you should be doing.
The boss send an email to everyone today “inviting” all of us to a staff meeting Thursday morning. And by all of us I mean everyone. The part time office help, even pulling the techs and service guys out of the field for this meeting. We haven’t had a full-staff meeting the entire time I’ve been at this company. From what I’m hearing from others it’s been years since he’s called a full-staff meeting.
As you can imagine rumors are flying. Everything from he’s closing the doors to he’s sold the company. If I’m being completely honest neither of those sounds all that bad at the moment.
Oughta be interesting, I promise to keep everyone posted!
Bets it’s some petty whiny rant about how unhappy he is with people and/or something extremely stupid, and he comes off as a complete shit head.
So the big meeting today went something like this…
Five minutes of talking about one of our biggest vendors (and one of the few that the boss hasn’t completely alienated) getting bought out. That was actually important and worth talking about. Then we had…
90 minutes of “don’t piss on the bathroom floor, clean up your coffee spills, and don’t put your dirty hands on the walls.”
What a waste of time. I was so hoping for new ownership, no such luck!
I did find out today that this company is in more trouble than I thought. I knew we had lost several accounts recently but there were many more losses than I was aware of. This company is circling the drain and the boss has no one to blame but himself. You can’t treat people like dog crap and then expect them to do business with you. Seems like a big old “DUH!” to me.
Told you.
Asshole bosses don’t have “big meetings” for positive reasons.
While I would have loved home made cookies, the RatKing’s Lair is now on hold.
We have a new County Supervisor who has noticed that there are boxes waiting to be brought to the warehouse. There is no room in the warehouse, so I now have another storage unit. This one is new and clean and maintained and has such amenities as lights and electric outlets for fans and a restroom (with water, not a portapotty) in walking distance. Totally up town for us.
Facilities installed shelves, we don’t have to deal with pallets there. WOOHOO!!!
We eagerly started filling said shelves at the bottom on one side of the room. Paper weighs a lot, my boxes weigh about 30-40 lbs. Then we started on the second level. Almost had that level filled when one of the shelves gave way. I looked at it and the supports had not been connected. The units are all connected, so now we have to move 120 boxes off the shelves and keep track of their unique locations so someone can fix the support. BOO!!!
I’m back at a customer I left about a year ago, due to someone deciding that, since my position wasn’t necessary for a month, the best option was to let me go despite my boss’ and his boss’ strong opposition to the idea. “Let’s move her to this other position which only exists for the next two months and which she’s qualified for, aye?” was against the company’s culture, they just don’t have a concept of employee retention. At the same time, it’s very common to run into someone who’d been there before; I’ve known several cases of Bob (who was the third person in his post) having to explain to new hire James a process which it turned out James understood better, having been the first person in the position and the writer of the original procedure.
I’m working on something I designed. It’s not that “I’m familiar with it” or that “I know it”: I bloody well designed it and it bloody well worked perfectly thank you much in sixty-bloody-three company locations! Of course the design has been changed; the new design is more complicated and has less functionality; there’s 63 locations which have my design but now we’re implementing this shiny new one in 3 others. There’s several hundred locations left to implement. The question floating around the team is “do they plan on changing the design for every other group of locations now? Cos there ain’t enough alphabet for all those codes…” Bloody morons them for doing that, and me for coming back to be that James (although my Bob didn’t bother explain).
Just…
Just…
PEOPLE.
Argh.
Here’s a strategy I’ve used for dealing with that kind of thing:
Build a modification onto the new process, that gives users a ‘compatibility’ option which allows it to work with the old system, using the old codes, etc. Justify it to your bosses as providing flexibility, being compatible with the old system, and saving money on training, and letting deployment to all sites be scheduled more economically. Probably they will go boasting to their boss about this design.
But in reality, it’s just a way to keep using the old system. (Possibly using a few new screen designs, etc. to make it look new.) Locations can keep using it in ‘compatibility mode’ until everybody in the office is trained on the new system, until business is slow enough to do the changeover, etc. – unless the new system has real benefits for them, the locations will find plenty of excuses to stay with the old one. And management will never notice, since officially they have installed the new system. They may notice a year or 2 later, but by then managers are on to new projects, and don’t care anymore.
But this does leave a burden – on you: you now have 2 sets of code to maintain. You must make sure that new features re implemented in both the old & new system. But it’s often worth it.
Oh, but it’s not the new system. Officially, what we are implementing is my system. And, since the new system is not working (there are pieces of code which didn’t get moved to QA but kill me if I know which ones), we may end up implementing exactly that.
Details are requested but ultimately unnecessary. I feel you.