Workplace griping, anyone?

The BBQ Pit
5202

And that confusion relates to copyright issues, and name changes because of them.

The first version, from IBM circa 1974, was named Structured English QUEry Language (“SEQUEL”). But IBM discovered that SEQUEL was already copyrighted in the UK by an aircraft company. So when they came out with the next version, and extensively changed product, they renamed it to Structured Query Language (“SQL”) and said it was to be prounced as the letters {“ess queue el”). Edgar Codd, inventor of the relational database, encouraged this renaming – he wanted a major break from the previous version (named SEQUEL) because that was a bad implementation – it violated several of the fundamental ‘rules’ of relational databases. But many of the experienced, expert users continued to pronounce it as sequel, even though it’s written SQL.

When other companies (like Oracle) came out with their versions of relational databases, they used SQL as the name for their version of the access language. Because they felt that acronym was safe from copyright infringement claims by IBM.

The ess queue el pronunciation is still the correct one, officially, and so listed in the ANSI Standard. But lots of people pronounce it sequel (Zipf’s Law in action).

5203

And in English it’s relatively common to spell out acronyms (I think it is relatively common in German as well); in other languages, it’s much more common to pronounce them when possible. Nobody says Erre-e-ene-efe-e, but renfe; the only time I’ve heard someone pronounce BASF as be-a-ese-efe was in a BASF ad, and my mother and brother (neither of them a chemist) yelled ¡basf, atontaos! at the TV before I could recover from my astonishment. Speakers of those languages will pronounce SAP as “sap” no matter what SAP Gmbh says and SQL as their own language’s closer approximation of “sequel”, no matter what it’s called in English.

5204

Not only do I have my new project, I’m starting Monday. Next Monday. As in, five days from now. Or four. Depending on how you count. Wait a minute, wasn’t St Joe’s supposed to be a national holiday? Oh well, maybe I’ll have Tuesday off.

May everybody else who’s in the middle of interviews have as much luck. And may they all be jobs which keep us away from this thread except to commiserate with others!

5205

That… that is brilliant.

5206

In my experience, people who’ve had to deal with SAP’s systems pronounce it as “sap.” :stuck_out_tongue:

5207

In my experience, that’s not the only word for it. :wink:

5208

Well, in polite company. :slight_smile:

5209

It was brilliant ten years ago; now it’s a brilliant way to guarantee that you never get an interview.

5210

Two nights ago, the phone rings at 3:30 AM. “Hi, this is the overseas support team. You need to approve emergency network change number such-and-such, there’s a major outage in New Zealand, and they can’t do the change without approval. W. has already approved.”

“W. is my manager. I report to W. If she approves, so do I. And we have an outage. Why in the name of all that’s holy and unholy would I not approve? Why are we holding up the work for this meaningless exercise? Yes, it’s approved!” I manage to convey in as calm and polite a manner as I can.

“Well, we needed your approval as well, it’s The Process!”

And that of course shut me up.

Because somebody got the bright idea that we need to implement the ITIL framework for service delivery - I think because all the cool kids are doing it, or something.

So they hired an ITIL consultant, who sat down, contemplated her own navel for a few weeks, dumped a new set of processes in our lap and disappeared as soon as the check cleared.

With the new framework came a new manager for process compliance, and he so very much likes it when processes are complied to. He hasn’t the foggiest idea of the work we’re actually doing - that’s not his problem. He’s just in charge of enforcing the processes. And he has the ear of senior management, who are adamant that their investment is seen to bear fruit in the form of nice, high process compliance figures.

And so The Process has become the new indisputable authority. If it’s in The Process, you do it. Even if it means calling 3 people out of a 5-person team at 3:30, for no other reason than to “get approval”.

The purpose of The Process has become that of it being complied with.

5211

Did you say (after you got off the phone), “I got your process right here!” and grab your crotch suggestively?

5212

Oh, man - could you have gotten away with saying “No, I DISAPPROVE! Mwuah-hah-haaahhhh!” and still kept your job? :smiley:

Had a similar situation when my husband was hospitalized. Got a middle-of-the-night call from the ICU, which naturally got my heart pounding, and it was a nurse calmly asking for my permission to do such-and-such procedure. I was all WTF? Of COURSE I give my permission! Just keep him alive, dammit!

Hung up the phone and had a moment of inky black humor where I wondered how they would have reacted if I’d said “Nah. Let the bastard die already.”
My turn!
The breakroom in my new office is pure anarchy. There’s a dishwasher but absolutely no policy for emptying/running or a way to know if what’s in there is even clean. The icemaker sucks, and not only does the ice always stick together in big lumps but the only two options for removing it are a) your fingers, or b) a flimsy Styrofoam cup. Which gets dropped back on top of the ice after being held.

I’m whatever the opposite of a germophobe is, and even I think that’s rather unsanitary!

Also, there’s some kind of system outage today and I’ve gotten about 1.5 hours of actual work done but New Boss doesn’t care and, apparently, has no intention of letting us leave early despite the fact that we’re literally sitting around doing zilch.

5213

The company I work for decided that ITIL was the way to go about three years ago.

After reviewing the new procedures and crap the rest of us decided that ITIL is the acronym for It Takes Insane Labor.

Two years later ITIL is gone along with the management team that was singing its praises.

5214

Damn. Oh well, back to the old drawing board.

5215

What I said can’t be typed out, but it wasn’t complimentary.

I may try withholding approval one of these days. Perhaps withhold approval of one of my own changes, just to see the system fold back upon itself.

It appears my employer has figured out a Machiavellian scheme to keep dissenters in line: I raised my concerns in a perfectly (honest!) constructive and matter-of-fact way. Next thing I know - BAM! - I was part of the Steering Committee. Goddammitsomuch. I hope nobody caught me muttering “pour encourager les autres”…

5216

Goddamn it so much, CG. I get my hands on a juicy piece of work and I can’t get you to fucking leave it alone and let me work on it myself. You are NOT fucking stealing another piece of work out of my hands!

I need to change a document. Some instructions I wrote for another department on how they are to handle something. Because even though I was pretty detailed and explicit, they failed to follow it and are claiming confusion. Of course, CG has to write up what he thinks it should say (all paraphrases of what I already said in my email explaining it to them in the first place) and send it to me. “Trying to help”. As I said to him: I already said all of that in my email, and I can handle this.

Fuck off and do your own work.

5217

Hey coworker, just a head’s up: YOU do not make the rules around here. Especially when it comes to how overtime and pager coverage for vacations is concerned. I am free to refuse any and all overtime unless mandated by the boss, and your mumbling and grumbling ain’t gonna change that. If you don’t like the policy, take your complaints to management and stop bitching to me about it.

5218

I find the “stay till its done, but you shouldn’t get paid for it” middle managers and coworkers to be the most annoying in that bunch. What I hate most is when they demand I help them do their work and stay late because they were messing around all day and not doing the job. Needless to say, I refuse to stay with no extra pay.

5219

SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! I can’t believe you still don’t shut up!

The lady across the hall from me seems perfectly pleasant, but she doesn’t shut her fucking mouth from eight in the morning until I leave at 4:30 (I assume she’s still blabbering on the phone or to someone in her office after that as well, but I don’t have to listen any longer since I’m OTFD). And she’s a LOUD TALKER - I hear every syllable of every word.

And my boss in the office next to hers is a cackler - she sounds like a complete loon when she laughs, and she laughs all fricking day long. I was talking to my husband about this today; the environment in almost all jobs I’ve had has been of no one ever getting a moment’s peace and quiet to just work - doesn’t that seem a bit counter-productive (literally)?

5220

I’ve had a couple you might love even more:
The contract listed working hours as “8-8’30 to 5-5’30, with a 30’ lunch break.” Those were the hours Andy and I worked.
Our bosses would rant at us abot how we should stay late (unpaid of course) in order to show our dedication, same as they did. They’d stay until 7pm every day!
Only, it was after having arrived at 11am-1pm…
They were working less than 8 hours, they were working whichever hours they found more to their liking (in blatant breach of contract, either of them could be fired over it), but hey, it was us who weren’t doing things right. Nu-hu.

One of those bosses was female and got pregnant during the time I was there. At one point she received a call from Human Resources, worriedly asking what was the issue with the pregnancy and whether she wouldn’t do better taking paid medical leave. “Oh, there is nothing wrong, everything’s fine!” “Really? That’s interesting, given that you’ve taken 5 leaves of absence labeled ‘gynecologist visit’ in the last 3 weeks! Unless you’re giving birth to a child with multiple heads, this sure doesn’t seem like the usual frequency :mad:”

5221

Hmmm. I dunno about your workplace but at mine, the bosses are salaried and as such get paid the same no matter how much they work and try to get us to work more so they can leave early even if they want us to stay late.

One the second part, well I can understand that she is worried about her pregnancy and I can’t hold anyone wrong for that. I would say that 5 times in 3 weeks is far too many times. She could just go on her days off if she was that concerned. Unless she got punched in the guts or something else, then I have no idea why she would go so much.