NM
Is anyone else having trouble posting replies? I keep getting a server error message.
I like this idea. It could work in my favor, because if I’m setting deadlines, I can give myself a little extra time, where she wants everything right away.
The latest funny thing from my supervisor–we’re working on a very large (for us), high-profile project. She’s heading up the project, and we have people from different departments meeting to work on it. After our last meeting, she told me we “have to present a united front” to “keep the project moving along.” Which basically means that she expects me to never disagree with her. On this very big project that will affect a lot of people for years. :rolleyes: I respectfully told her that I will be expressing my opinion in these meetings, so we’ll see how that plays out. She has lots of crappy ideas, and I’m not going to shut my mouth and go along with it. The whole project (under her leadership) is quickly turning into a disaster area, so I’m looking forward to some good times ahead. Oh, well, this too shall pass, and we’ll move on to other projects that might be less of a trainwreck.
I should clarify this a little–when I said she has crappy ideas, what I really meant is that she often has spectacularly bad ideas. Most of the time it doesn’t really matter, but this is a really big deal. We’re supposed to be evaluating our supervisors this year, so I’m impatiently waiting for that. Not that it will do any good, but I’m going to tell it like it is. I might be looking for a new job after that.
Why do you hate me Chimera? 
I’ve tried asking nicely.
I’ve tried begging.
I’ve even tried bribing you with top shelf booze.
Are you really going to make me research material to blackmail you into including me as a bcc on these email exchanges?
Have you tried chiropractor gift cards, Projammer?
It’s the second time I work with agents from A Certain Country. Both the other agency and this one apparently have it as standard procedure to speak with their consultants daily 
. I’m currently in a country where my cellphone doesn’t work (it doesn’t recognize the local networks, I promise roaming is active), in a beautiful, world-famous city which sometimes seems to have more tourists than locals, with decent weather, spending several hours each morning with a guy explaining to me some stuff that’s on documents he already sent me beforehand (he’s on the third round for some items, on the fourth for others) and the rest of the day free…
and the agent thinks I’m going to stay in the hotel so he can call me? Bwah? Dude, I call my mother once a week if in-country and once every two weeks if abroad!
I did PM Projammer an edited copy* of the exchange.
For which I am owed… a shrubbery! 
- edited out only database/table/field and personal names.
I am currently working with a micromanaging, meddling, interfering-in-my-job director, who works remotely, 3000 miles and 3 time zones away on the other side of the country. At 0800 my time, my BlackBerry buzzed with this:
“This will be on x cost code, will meet Grandboss and Junior Grandboss there, attend Great Grandboss meeting and a meeting with clients tonight.
Admin A, can you reserve me an airline ticket as follows:
Rubberband Airline (I think has the earliest flight, Ricketywing Airlines is the other) leave at 8:30 am from Hick Town to Big City.
Return earliest flight tomorrow, Thursday, I think it is Ricketywing.
Admin A, can you reserve me a full size car at National Car Rental and drop off when I fly out in the morning.
Das Glas, can you reserve me a room at the Holiday Inn in Big City for tonight only.”
Admin A and I scramble to get this done – finding hotel, waking up travel agent, finding vehicle to rent – all before even getting our coffee. Get director’s flight, car and hotel. Director misses flight because of travel agent error. Drama ensues. Flight re-booked. Car rental pick up changed. No change needed to hotel. Come back from late lunch to an “oops” e-mail from director. She made a mistake, Great Grandboss meeting is across town, change hotel to other hotel and cancel first reservation.:smack: This took up the entire morning for Admin A and myself.
This is the director who demands workplans and travel requests from her slaves three weeks in advance and won’t approve changes. Who won’t let anyone claim overtime even if they have put in a 12-hour day. Who is leaving in two weeks after getting all of us involved in a months-long, high-level project that we didn’t want in the first place. There is going to be such a party here on the 31st.
I didn’t have such a great day at work, but most of my bad feeling was caused by things other than people/situations at work. Having no less than 3 internal organs all aching at the same time will do that to you. 
Oh yeah, and my boss brought hard-boiled eggs for lunch, and if there’s any stench I can’t stand, it’s the nauseatingly disgusting reek of hard-boiled eggs. She was understanding, though, and let me sit at the far end of the table. (Gee, I sound like such an insufferable princess admitting this. :rolleyes:)
Oh, and I forgot my own lunch at home. Though I did get something out of the vending machine, plus someone at work gave me some bread, so it wasn’t too much of a big deal.
This made me laugh. The animals are not just wild, they’re rabid and they bite you if you get anywhere close to them.
Twice in the past week I’ve had to talk to two people who couldn’t grasp the concept of entering the username they were given in the box labeled “username” and the password they were given in the box labeled “password,” a feat that over a hundred other people taking the same courses have easily accomplished. AND I wasn’t allowed to ask them “have you ever considered that maybe you’re just not smart enough to take a course online? I’m sorry, but if you can’t figure out logging in without help, how well do you think you’re going to do in the course?”
I try my best to never take a job that requires me to do travel bookings - they are such a huge pain in the ass. My sympathies (and yay for the PITA boss being finished soon!).
That’s sort of the entry level bar for doing online courses - if doesn’t get any easier than the username/password complexity!
Ok, so I’ve grudgingly accepted that women take their cell phones into the multi-stall shared potty at the office. I don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to attempt to muffle my bathroom noises either. But today was a new low: someone in there was ON SPEAKERPHONE.
Please, someone tell me I’m not the only one who thinks that’s kinda … Not right.
That is not right. I hope you flushed while the conversation was going on, even if you didn’t need to.
^ Repeatedly.
My last boss expected us freelancers to go on working for his project after our contracts were officially over, without a new contract or an extension, and without any way to register the work we were doing or bill for it. At the end of February he was still negotiating with the end client something that should have been signed before Christmas. I finally set a filter to archive any emails from his company or the final client and gave the agents a heads-up about it.
Yesterday I got an email from the head of the developers which I archived after reading it. Beautifully and corporatively diplomatic, it amounted to “we regret to inform you that we have been unable to work on your latest request and shall be unable to do so until you provide an appropriate costing code. Kthxbye.” CCs included his boss, his company’s general manager for that business line in the country, and the company’s european manager for the business line.
I’m now wondering if I should remove the filter so I can enjoy the fireworks, but I don’t imagine they’ll be copying me.
I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to make imitations of rude bodily noises.
Got to hear one of my colleagues relating the details of his most recent date to another colleague…this wonderful fellow apparently told his date, “You’re pretty smart for a girl.” I have to admit that I don’t mind when the sexist pigs out themselves like this…it’s much easier to watch one’s back when you know who the potential problem people are. It does bother me when I feel like I can’t trust my fellow engineers though.
Our IT manager left a couple weeks ago. He and the office manager used to come in at 7:00 and chat for an hour and a half every morning. I didn’t care because they didn’t bother me. But now that the IT manager is gone the Office manager has moved down the hall and talks to people that are very close to me and it’s very distracting. It’s so bad I can’t even coherently write this rant! 
One of my coworkers has a Go-Pro video camera. Whenever they would talk in front of his office he would sigh loudly then start recording them. They quickly moved on.
So, Friday, I forgot to set my alarm and only woke up when another resident of the house woke me up. This was an hour later than I’d intended to wake up, but I still had enough time to get to work on time.
This morning, I woke up in a panic when my alarm didn’t go off.
I don’t work until afternoon, and so hadn’t set an alarm to go off early.
This is why I hate alternating Open and Close scheduling.
Please, tell me we work together. This should not be that common.
(What I don’t get is how they get reception, when I can’t get it at my desk.)
Autoflush toilets.
Do you really think none of them will accidentally do a Reply To All? Remove the filter.
Well, as Dear Abby said a few days ago, if the person on the other end isn’t bothered by it …
I see a solution to your problem!
My gripe relates to my last job still sneaking its way into my current job. I’ve mentioned before that in mid-November I gave a month’s notice to my old department that I was transferring to another department. Since the remaining employee doing that particular job was only extremely part-time, my current manager also said that I could go help out now and then when absolutely needed - especially since going into other departments and helping figure out/solve issues for them is part of my current job duties.
They hired a replacement to fill my position about 3 weeks ago. Did they even interview the person with about 20 years of experience in that job at our institution, laid off due to losing grant funding? Oh no, of course not. They hired a new grad student. Because she’d work for cheap.
Yesterday - my experienced part-time former coworker gave two weeks’ notice, and she only works a day and a half per week. The current full-timer is going to be in so far over her head. Plus, knowing my former manager, she won’t want to hire a replacement, even a part-timer.
My manager is on vacation until Monday, so I think I need to have a talk with her about this, maybe get her involved so my old department is made aware that we’ve been more than generous in loaning me out. I mean, I was there about once a week in January and February, besides all the other e-mail advice.