Aren’t those the guys who decide on their own pay rates? I sure wish I could decide on my own pay rate - I think I’m worth a good $200,000 per year.
Well, I guess I just saved a lot of work…
I’m supposed to “sell” the usage of a certain computer program to my client’s different divisions. We are in the middle of one such sale. Everything the division has asked for has been a “no”: using two things which are part of the program’s standard setup? (Lots of data involved, but minimal configuration and no programming) No. Getting the list of upcoming work in a visual fashion with descriptive text instead of a list of codes? No. Updating some fieldnames on a custom form which are mistranslated from the original? No.
If I was the person in charge of “my” part in this particular division, my response would be “fuckall, I’m sticking with excel: less work and it actually does what I want and presents stuff the way I want it.” How the fuck am I supposed to sell a system which takes more work than the old way and gives less functionality? No.
How does the fact that you’re being tasked to come up with an effective sales pitch for a product with no observable benefits wind up saving you work? It would seem to be a lot MORE work, from my POV.
Yep. And whenever it’s pointed out to them, they reply that they’d like to take the same pay and benefits cuts as everybody else, golly gee they would, but the rules just don’t allow that, darn it.
And who makes the rules? They do, of course. Nice work if you can get it.
Computer programs aren’t sold to corporations on the basis of rational cost-benefit analysis. They’re sold to executive vice presidents, at the golf course. At least that’s how it was with our new communications program, I understand.
1.) Why are you still working for the state if your pay is so abyssmal?
2.) I certainly hope you and your coworkers are working in some way to get all of these people elected out of office. Have you considered getting a local news provider involved? A compare/contrast of the legislature to other state employees could be an enlightening article or TV segment.
Somehow I’m not convinced a college graduate who doesn’t know the difference between the public and private “sectors” is worth more than $8/hr. :rolleyes:
Going on two solid months of my boss coming in in the morning and sitting in his office behind a closed door. All day. Like a petulant child.
Everyday for two months.
You sure it’s not just because of the weather? I know that our offices stay a lot warmer if you keep the door closed.
So a typo negates years of experience and qualifications? Yeah, right. I’m sure you’ve never made yourself one and you’re worth your weight in platinum. :rolleyes: yourself.
But on a philosophical level, that would be our legislators. According to them, no full-time public employee should make any more than the average private sector employee…private sector including part-time workers and minimum wage workers. It’s all the same thing to them.
Job-to-job comparisons have been done. State workers with a college degree earn less in the public than the private sector, and a higher proportion of state workers have college degrees than in the general public. My pay is about 2/3 what I’d earn in the private sector. I love the job, which is why I do it, but the constant lies and hypocrisy from the legislature and knee-jerk hate from the public make it tough at times.
I didn’t vote for any of the bunch who are in office now. Sadly, state-employee bashing resonates with the general public.
Nitpick: a “typo” is what happens when the person at the keyboard strikes the wrong key. Using the wrong word entirely is more of a malapropism.
I’m not going to give you any grief about either error though, beyond a minor smirk.
May I ask what state you live and work in?
I don’t know about knee-jerk hate from the public; some people have a philosophical objection to paying taxes for things they don’t agree with.
You choose to dip your snout in the public trough, and then complain that it isn’t full enough. Sorry, no sympathy here. If the only kind of job you can love is in the public sector, well, tough.
I don’t disagree that your legislators are probably self-serving assholes, since that is true of 99% of that ilk (percentage pulled directly out of my ass) anyway. That doesn’t change my view of many public sector employees and their supposed entitlements.
Roddy
Just checking. I’ll concede that. My bad. Coming from someone ranting about all their degrees, you might admit it looked like a good nit to pick! 
Nope. We have the suckiest zone heating system. It’s significantly colder in his office with his door closed.
Well, since there’s no way this particular division will buy it, I won’t have to set it up. But that doesn’t get me unemployed: it gets me to do the same thing for the next division. We’ve got enough divisions for the next couple of years and that’s because my team works only within the EU and only for 1/3 of the corporation’s divisions. There’s other teams doing the same elsewhere and for the other 2/3rds.
What irks me is that this is one of those things that stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of an important concept: this is a very big company, with very different processes, location sizes, etc. There’s divisions doing construction in the US, telecom divisions in Indonesia, soil reclamation divisions in Germany, factories in South Africa… Any “standard process” defined for such a corporation should be like a hardhat: the outside is rigid, but it’s got a part inside which is both bouncy and size-adaptable; there should be options, and then once you select the option that fits your needs best you stick to it (unless and until the needs change). They’ve opted for the steel helmet, one-size-doesn’t-fit-anybody approach instead. For those people whose needs are smaller than the helmet, it can work (discarding un-needed parts is ok): the problem is when you run into someone who’s going above and beyond.
Do you work for a government agency in NY with a boss who was written up for bullying? This is my former boss!
Do the words come out this way from the beginning, or do you have to run them through a retard filter three or four times?
Ooh, flicked you on the raw a bit, did it?
The joke’ll be on him when it turns out that productivity goes up when he’s unavailable. 
Oh yeah, you *completely *struck a nerve, what with me working for a non-government, publicly traded company, earning probably in the top 2% for my position. Sure got me there, chum.