Workplace griping, anyone?

The BBQ Pit
6662

In the months that followed, I would sometimes go to the website to see if my job was still open, and at first, it looked like it took FIVE MONTHS to replace me. It took 4 months to FIND me, that part I do remember. My boss kept saying that he kept interviewing people who were clearly not a good fit for the job, to the point where they were better off having nobody than these people.

I Googled my boss a few weeks ago out of curiosity, and found out that he left that job in June 2012 and doesn’t even live in that city any more! He took a job at the home office, 50 miles away, and lives there now.

Here’s one thing that I think may have been a factor in my hiring: At one point in the interview, I was told that I might occasionally have to work a 12-hour-plus day. I replied, “I can handle that. I’m doing it now.”

6663

Thanks fo’ rep’asenting! I like fresh ones so much that I’m on The Necco Diet.™ Seriously, my work is full of Generous ‘N’ Hefty Admin. Asst’s whose desks are covered with open boxes of free bakery.
So I keep the short rolls in my pocket and have a teeny treat instead of a donut.

Amen! I stayed way too long at a pathological job and it affected my marriage and my health. Luckily, I got fired from there – even job hunting (and watching my savings dwindle) was so much better for me than working with evil/stupid bosses.

6664

Copy-pasted verbatim from a response my team lead just sent out:

Sweet Jeebus. I know exactly what she’s trying to convey, and even then I couldn’t parse that. No wonder the person wrote back all :confused: but my team lead was so ticked off that she did so!

6665

Mind if I quote you from that thread? (Well, too late, here goes…)

I just found it so perfectly appropriate to Cognoscant’s situation that it begged to be said again.

6666

Is your lead a native English speaker? If English is a second or later language, then MAYBE one can forgive this. OTOH, if English is her first/only language, this would not be what I would consider acceptable business communication.

6667

So we had the office Christmaas party today.

Bad news: My boss’s boss talked to me. We talked about topics I’m uncomfortable with, like my picky-eating habits, and their origin, and my religion. (I was talking in French. Did I admit to beign agnostic?I don’t remember.)

Good news: I later indulged in lots of free wine. I’m still under its influence. Yay!

6668

Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to start looking. In my mental health state this is a huge step. You all have really meant a lot to me…thank you.

Unfortunately I forgot what a royal pain in the ass applying for a job is in the modern world. I just spent over an hour filling in a long online form that wouldn’t let you tab between fields and asked for things like the phone number of the supervisor you had five jobs ago (that takes me back to 1998!). I “saved” the form and it promptly wiped out the whole thing. Attempts to save just a few lines caused them to be wiped out too. Looking for an e-mail address for the HR office just resulted in finding a notice saying, don’t bother us about the website problems, we’re far too busy to fix them. Wonderful. On to application number 2.

6669

I wouldn’t sweat it; they just gave you a preview of what working for them would be like. :slight_smile:

6670

Chin up, Cognoscant. It will get better. I came back here tonight just to make sure you were still posting. People do care. I can’t help directly, but I do wish you all the best in your search for something better.:slight_smile:

6671

This. I classify sites like that under B for “Bullet, Dodged”.

We’ve been doing load tests for months; now we’re doing The Real Load. Yesterday the clients’ people were surprised to be told that they need to check every piece of data we load before we even start on the next one. “But the external auditors verified the process!” “The process, yes, but not whether the data was correct. YOU are the only ones who can tell whether the data is correct. The Nava fairy and the Raoul fairy and the Anne-Marie fairy can only use their magic wands so many times before they run out of gas, you see. We can tell you which lines were missing key data and did not load, but we cannot tell whether you wrote 99999 as the price just so there would be something there. It’s YOU who need to do that.” It’s for moments like those I forgive my boss for being so totally not a project manager…

6672

Just slipping out of lurking on the thread to chime in on everyone else’s advice, Cognoscant: you need to get out of this horrid job situation ASAP. I was rooting for Dr. Girlfriend last year to get away from her dreadful boss (Go you, Dr. Girlfriend!) and now I’ve got both fingers crossed that you find a terrific job very quickly indeed. Do you have any leave time that you can take to help you concentrate on the job search?

You’re already shaking your contact tree to see what ripe fruit falls out, which is awesome and important. You never know what might be just around the corner for you! I really hope everything goes well for you, and soon!

6673

**My fruit took years to ripen, so I stayed at Horrible Job way too long. When the Awesome Job suddenly became a reality, they needed me to start in three days (important meetings). Luckily, the boss’s insanity worked in my favor. I got off tjhe phone, asked if bosslady was in, and was told “Yeah, but you do NOT want to go in there, She’s in a horrible mood.”

So I barged in, all cheery, which really pissed her off. Told her about the job offer and that I really wanted to give her two weeks’ notice…but she cut me off with “You’re the one betraying us! You can’t stay here another day-- I want you out. Today!” It was right out of a poorly written TV drama.

I had to point out how screwed some of my projects would be, and argue with her so I could come in over the weekend to finish them.

Ran into one of her ex-minions the other day, and he asked me if I ever regret leaving… I said Pfffft!

6674

Well I spent two hours putting together Application #2. Kept goofing up the name of the street the HR office was on, of all things, and had to reattach my cover letter three times!

And well…THE PHONE INTERVIEW IS TOMORROW. I am speechless. Ten hours after I submitted and they are calling. After being beaten down here so much, you think you are worthless, that nobody wants you, and then you get called almost immediately. I just can’t thank all of you guys enough, this job looks really so much more what I’d like to do than I’m doing now even if you take away all the garbage going on upstairs as it were, and I really really wouldn’t have had the confidence to even apply without this thread.

Difficulty: job is 1,400 miles away from home. :frowning:

6675

Here’s one from Today:

A couple of weeks ago, customer sent us test files for us to parse and load into our system. So we wrote a custom parser to handle their file format. A couple of weeks later, when they start sending us production files, it’s a totally different format. So of course the parser doesn’t work. I alert the CSR that deals with this customer that they need to send us files in the original format.

Thing 1: She claimed that the customer isn’t doing anything differently. Well, one look at these files will tell you they are not the same format, so the customer is lying.

Thing 2: She asked if we can just accept the new files. I pointed out that since the format is different, we’d have to write a new parser. Which she found unacceptable, mainly because it would cost money.

Thing 3: Eventually, she actually called the customer to find out what they were doing, and lo and behold, they were using a totally different process from when they sent the first files (going back to the original process was easy for them). Whoa, when the CSR actually talks to customers instead of bitching to development, things get done!

Thing 4: She decided to come to an unrelated meeting with unrelated people, and bitch at me directly for not figuring out what the customer was doing. Apparently because I have psychic powers and was not deigning to use them.

The good news is my boss stood up for me, called her out on it privately, and then came and apologized for her behavior. But still… what the fuck am I supposed to do lady? Customer sends us the wrong file, how the fuck is that my fault!?

6676

GROAN I’ve got to travel next week for a 3-day training course on “problem solving”. My boss almost forgot to let me know about it, because either I’m known as a good problem-solver already, or because my area is actually the only one without any chronic problems (go figure). Unfortunately, she told me, and I said I’d go.

Only now I find out it’s f’ing Kepner Tregoe. AGAIN. I’ve already had to sit though this training three times in the last decade. I’ve got the agenda: it’s even the same damn examples being used. I’ve run KT analyses. I’ve taught people to run KT analyses.

KT analysis sucks. It’s an overblown, bloated waste of time where you have to grind through every minute detail of no consequence that some nitwit on the team asks about. It completely discounts the expertise of any of the team members – it’s like a process run by Syndrome: everyone is special, so no one is special, so no one’s knowledge is privileged over others’ ignorance. As a process expert, this is deeply irritating.

UGH. There are about a dozen excellent problem solving techniques that are quicker and more appropriate for any situation than KT, but someone in management has a hardon for Kepner Tregoe because it gives so much information.

… At least it’ll probably be amusing when they find out we’re in Quality and Process Development. Last class they got all excited about the problems we work with, and even more excited when they learned we’d done KT before. Then dismayed when we recounted example after example of failed KT analyses that took days of time, only for the problem to be solved by simpler methods. (Usually, “they finally listened to the expert, who turned out to have been correct all along.”)

I got downsized many years ago from a job that I really should have left years before that. It took me over half a year to find opportunities, because I was limiting myself to local openings. Finally, I interviewed for a job that would’ve required relocation, and got an offer.

Whereupon I also got a callback, interview, and offer for the local (& much better) job that I still have 13 years later.

So I’d keep an open mind on the non-local opportunities. Be honest with them that you will have to figure out some arrangement that will work for your family, but having something positive moving forward will make a big difference in your stress and attitude for other interviews.

6677

Heh, had to check your profile to make sure you’re not from my team, as one of our groups is going to have to go through it next week.

I’ve been lucky enough to be otherwise engaged every time it’s come through here, but I did get a copy of the material, and I tend to agree that it’s pretty useless. In my case I’m on the top-level operations troubleshooting team for a large company–if we suddenly have the need to go through a spreadsheet to remember to ask questions like “when did the problem start,” “what changes were made at the time the problem occurred” and so forth, I think there’s a major hiring problem.

Do they still go through the donut-making exercise? I recall people from both the classes I skipped saying it was a stupid group simulation they had to go through.

6678

No donut examples when I’ve done it. The course syllabus says “Soter Situation” as the example. I’m looking through my old training material to see if I have the instructor packet for that one. I mentioned I’d taught people how do to KT, right? I’ve got an instructor packet. Two copies, actually.

6679

As you say, it’s a difficulty - difficulties can be worked with.

Very good advice. A relocation would be quite difficult, but people do it all the time. I’d do the interview even if you don’t want to move, Cognoscant - it will be good experience.

6680

Is it in the same country at least?

6681

Since he’s in the United States, 1,400 miles is really nothing. In some cases that wouldn’t even get you across 2 states.