The jobs where in theory I got “structured training” were the ones where the training was worse. In one, the trainer had a bunch of slides which she proceeded to read out loud slowly and carefully. In another, I was told “well, this is just business as usual” and never received any documentation; questions would be met with “that’s how it is”, “why the fuck are you asking?” and “because my balls say so”. In yet another, I was given a book on the kind of materials the company produced and forbidden from sharing the information in it with other company workers
Well, he also didn’t come in until 1:00 PM yesterday. And left promptly at 4:58 PM. I had a long chat with my manager yesterday morning. I am not the only one with issues; manager received an email from a VP, as well.
It’s a shame; I like the guy, but he seems to have mentally given up. I don’t want to have to break in a newbie.
On the plus side, I’ve had the day off today, thanks to manager. Basically, he said, “you’ve been working your ass off and there’s no money in the budget to give you a bonus, so just take the day.” It’s been very relaxing.
I’m at a work conference today and listening to various people giving presentations. I was doing the same a week ago, too.
Please don’t read your journal article verbatim as your presentation. It’s overly long and formal, plus either you make fuckloads of PowerPoint slides to cover the material or you leave unrelated slides up on screen while you’re babbling about other things. And I swear if I again hear someone say “the authors found…” when said speaker is one of the authors, I will launch a water bottle at the podium.
Similarly, I understand that you may be a nervous speaker, but giving a presentation that sounds like this is your first time even seeing the talk (mispronouncing/misemphasizing words in context) and trying to include various jokey/lighthearted things (slides discussing your home state/pets/kids) that make it obvious that you created that presentation? That just makes you look unprofessional.
I just got back from lunch when a co-worker pinged me and asked me to take a look at a problem ticket in our mailbox. So I do so, and do a little bit of research. I find it was filed by someone who sits 3 cubes down from me, so I go talk to her about it and she’s on the phone. But I still get the information I need, so I go back to my cube, find the issue and respond to the problem ticket email with the information and required resolution.
Shortly thereafter my team lead comes over, a little bothered. “Why were you involved with that issue? Three of us were just on a telephone conference about it.” I tell him that I was asked to look at it by the Only Other Team Member Not On The Call, who is handling our mailbox. Then I show him my findings. He’s astonished, because they couldn’t get the key piece of information over the phone, to find out what I had already determined was the issue. Asks me how I got it. “Um, she…sits…right over there.” (pointing).
So now the task is assigned to me, and not the people who were on the phone call.
Oh yeah, and pray/well-wish for my success. I’m a contractor here and my job was posted up late last week (for permanent replacement) with an application deadline of earlier this week, and through a bit of fast negotiating with my company and my manager, I was allowed to apply for it.
Today sucked. My day was spent doing other peoples’ work because they weren’t capable of doing it, over a period of months. Lots of instances of this - especially since it seems my function at work now is “that guy who gets shit done, no matter what it is” - but one in particular really pisses me off: We need some stuff done online. I sent the documents required from our end in April, they never got online. I asked about it repeatedly, the documents were requested (again) repeatedly, and each time I asked if they needed my help with anything - each time they said they’d deal with it.
Well, boss’ patience ran out yesterday, so today I set up a phone conference to find out what the frog is going on. The ruminant responsible is saying essential online features don’t work because our stuff isn’t uploaded, and that uploading it was my job all along.
OK, haggisface, why didn’t you say so the dozen times I asked you, personally, directly, previously by email and phone? You think I don’t document this shit? You believe others share your delusions of adequacy? An hour later I’d done the required changes, though of course the site still isn’t working. Can’t do anything about it because I’m on the far side of the planet from all the others involved. All companies involved suffer from a severe failure to communicate.
Man, I’ve had shitty jobs before, and at least one awesome one. This one is neither - it’s just freaking weird.
This probably shouldn’t go here, but I don’t know where else to put it. I invited my minion and his partner to our wedding. I didn’t know his partners last name, so I addressed the invitation to minion by full name and “your partner Dan”.
The work culture in the Bible Belt oil industry is so homophobic that my minion is worried about bringing Dan and was IMO shockingly grateful that I recognized that they were a couple that I almost cried. That’s just wrong. I’m seriously outraged about this.
And we are still finding dead wasps on the floor. Sadly, we haven’t seen any flying ones so we can’t use our neat handheld bug zappers.
I talked to our manager about this in February and got all the specifics of what it would be back then. Job title, pay range, all that. I’ve been 100% crystal clear with Clueless George on this at every step of the way. THIS IS A PERMANENT POSITION WITHIN THE COMPANY. It is posted as such.
Friday he starts rambling on about how this has to be a first for the company, hiring us on directly as contractors instead of going through a contracting company. :smack: When I explained (again) that NO, these were permanent employee positions, he looked confused and asked if I was sure. :smack::smack::smack::smack::smack:
Seriously, you fucking dumbass, have you not been paying attention to a single fucking thing about this entire process?
Customer who came late to a sold-out show, after realizing that she might not be able to sit with her group because there were literally NO seats left other than a few scattered empties here and there: “Ugh, you guys need to plan this better!”
She then left the theater.
The mindboggling thing about this was that there were only TWO of them. Not only could we have arranged SOMETHING, we were actively in the process of doing so (my coworker was pulling chairs so that they could sit in the reserve deck). But, nope, she decided to flounce instead.
I really, REALLY hate it when people get pissy at me about how crowded it is. Folks, I am NOT going to kick someone out of their seat just because YOU couldn’t be arsed to show up on time. And there is absolute JACK SHIT I can do about the physical amount of people in here. Christ.
I have to write minutes for every meeting I attend.
I have at least two meetings every day.
My Key User has even more meetings. She’s supposed to read the minutes of everything, make any comments and sign. She still owes me minutes from three weeks ago (hasn’t had time to read them).
I love pen and paper, and writing, and reading, and all of that, but I hate minutes. Bleargh.
It’s little things like this that will make me work my ass off for someone, and be the best employee that I can be. It’s so simple & doesn’t really cost the company much, it amazes me that more employers don’t get it.
I was a Creative Director at an ad agency, and the owner was so convinced that her “minions” were trying to get away with slacking that she’d post someone at the door to take down names of anyone who came in after 8 am sharp. Even if you’d been up late at a midnight press check or a late photoshoot until the wee hours, you got called into her office if you didn’t have a perfect excuse for 8:05.
Oh, and one of her common moves was to come screaming in to the Creative Dept at 5 all in a tizzy because she’d forgotten that we had to get some big federal project submitted by midnight. “I’ll buy pizza and beer, but NObody leaves until we get this done!” Which was 11:59 pm, of course. And if you weren’t in by 8 sharp the next morning, it got brought up as a reason you weren’t getting any raise that year.
And then if she ahd too much to droink over lunch, she’d laughingly ask if the reason why she couldn’t keep good people was that she was “such a bitch”… which was always met with deafening silence.
Many years ago, I worked with someone like that. Because she was a technician, I was over her, although not technically her boss, and if I asked her to do something, she would say things like “Make me, bitch” or “You can’t hire, you can’t fire, so I don’t have to do anything you say.” :eek: She would also do things wrong on purpose and refuse to change it, so I just did everything myself, and she’d been there for many years, and was there for several years afterwards that I knew of, and was the #1 reason why the department has such high turnover.
Working at that place was such a horrible experience, I briefly considered surrendering my license, and when I had an interview several years later, I was asked why I left Hospital X after 4 months. I hemmed and hawed a bit, and the interviewer said, “You can tell me the truth. I’ve been told many times that Hospital X is a very difficult place to work at.”
ETA: She was not a member of any protected ethnic or disability class.
In all fairness, I was painting with a very broad brush in that post and I shouldn’t have done it. There are ignorant people everywhere, Texas is no different than anywhere else when it comes to that.
What I do think is odd is that its mostly younger people. It was in Arizona as well. Bill says that is because by the time someone turns 30 or so, they really don’t care what someone else is doing in their own bedroom because they are too busy worrying about the mortgage on their own place.
I don’t know. I just know that idiotic people who think that 2 consenting adults shouldn’t share love just flipping pisses me off and I don’t care what setting its in.
Me too. It would take so little for employers to generate loyalty and good feelings with their employees, and instead they do stupid things like, “team building exercises” that are universally hated (and usually on the employees’ own time).
I think that’s going to be my new saying; “Have you ahd too much to droink?”
:eek: She would also do things wrong on purpose and refuse to change it, so I just did everything myself, and she’d been there for many years, and was there for several years afterwards that I knew of, and was the 