User: “Hey, I need to set this thing up, can you help me?”
Me: Sure, fill out this form.
<get form a week later>
Me: The form is only half filled out. You’ll need to complete it before we can do X.
One week ago;
User: “Damn it, where are we with X? We’ve been waiting for you to set it up for us!”
Me: “My last response on this subject was (copy/paste last email where I said he needs to finish filling out the form)”
So far… <crickets>
I expect he’ll come back in another month or so and raise it up to management as me and my team not doing our jobs. Not worried. I will merely point out that it is an audit requirement that he fill out the form completely and he has repeatedly failed to do this. And if you think I’m being a dick about it, the parts he didn’t fill out involved the names they wanted assigned to objects and the properties and rights thereof. So, you know, just the whole part of telling us what the fuck we’re supposed to do for him.
I’m working with fairly nice people, but they be crazy. This morning the copier jammed about seven times in about 30 minutes when I started my day - they decided after that that I could use the GOOD copier. Let me get this right - you thought I was going to be able to photocopy 600 large files on the BAD photocopier?!? I…there…I can’t find any words.
Then my supervisor was telling me that I needed to copy a file in 12-14 minutes, and every second counts (later he said I needed to get it down to five minutes per file). They were trying to make it my problem - nuh uh. This place is an excellent example of, “Lack of planning on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on my part.” I will give you a solid day’s work; I will not somehow manage to pull miracles out of my ass. It is extremely unlikely that this job came up just before I was hired last week - my guess is they’ve known about it for quite a while.
I truly don’t think this job can be done - I’ll give them a good effort, though.
Oh, I forgot the other part (the part that will make flatlined twitch) - they have files, folders, and boxes and piles of files EVERYWHERE in their office. Every flat surface has a mound on it. I think this is a business that has no clue about records storage or anything to do with filing.
I work in a regulated industry; killing trees is my job. And, sometimes, I audit.
If I am ever handed a record with stapled pages, I explain it is completely unacceptable; every page of every record should have complete identifying information on it, in case it is separated from the rest of the file. We call this GDP.
If people argue, or roll their eyes, I pull out my staple remover. I love my job.
Then I ask for evidence that the sender, recipient, and date on the email is correct.
Just ask, “Didn’t the auditors warn you how long this might take?”
ARGGHHH!!! NOOOOOO!!! Scanning printed out emails to put online used to make me totally nutz.
Runs off and hides under the bed.
Actually, that’s how things were when I took this job. However, and this is big…I was hired to put things in order using what ever system I wanted. It was very satisfying and now that things are in order, every thing can be found. If one isn’t sure how to find things, there is a beautiful procedure manual available with step to step directions, including screen shots.
If that means Too Many Fuckheads, yes I was. I used to be the Records Manager for a very large county. What that meant was that I ruled over a kingdom of 18,000 banker boxes full of file folders.
It was kinda like how running the county dump must be. Nobody really thinks about what happens to their garbage after its taken away.
At that level, we didn’t worry about killing individual trees…we went for forests instead. One simple assault case would result in a Sheriff file, County Attorney file, a Public Defender file, a Clerk of the Court file and usually a Probation file. At least 3 quarters of each department file are copies of the other department’s files. I’m not talking about old murder cases from the 1960’s, I’m talking about cases from 2012.
Every single desk had a computer and people who knew how to use them. 95% of the documents were electronically created. They had a secure intranet and public pages, they had an IT department. WHY THE HOLY HELL WEREN’T THEY AT LEAST TRYING TO GET INTO THE 21st CENTURY?!?!
I don’t actually know why we’re copying all these files. I thought it was for an audit, but from things they’ve said, I’m not sure now. If they are being audited, I’d like to think that someone told them how long all of this would take.
That sounds absolutely marvelous. A lot of businesses don’t take records management serious at all, and they live to rue the day (like, oh, I don’t know - the company I’m working with).
It’s hard not to be judgmental, but I’m wondering how anyone who uses a keyboard could possibly be unaware of what to call a colon, and how to type it. Yet on a daily basis I talk to idiots who call it, “Uh, I dunno, that thing with the two dots.” It’s a colon, you asstard. A fucking colon! A common punctuation mark that I’ve known what to call and how to type since I was <10 years old, you fucking idiot customer, what the fuck is wrong with you?
I’m not a chicken-little type. I’m generally pretty optimistic that humanity will keep on keepin’ on. But when I have to talk to yet another idiot who doesn’t know what a colon is, or what to call it, I cynically wonder how our public schools failed this person so badly.
A friend of mine, after spending three and a half years in Alaska with her Air Force husband, went to Texas with him. At the Texas DMV she tried to get a new driver’s license, which should be a simple procedure. She was told about taking driving tests, all the forms and documentation she needed, and when she asked why was told by the clerk “We don’t take licenses from foreign countries.”
I wish I had time to make the records here be nice, at least mine and maybe not as awesome as flatline’s but nice. But since that’s not my job and no one helps me with filing until I get a temp in… well I’m jist happy to have my stuff stacked in a way I can locate things. sighs I hate the piles of paper but unless I give up a few Saturdays I’m not going to get any better. I’m just glad a lot got automated so it’s not so much paper as it was before (a year’s worth of paper for one area was two filing cabinets, now it’s only one… if we can get the rest of the guys on board it could be nil… at least for the one area, I won’t get into others).
Dude, whining to me about a possible change in team responsibilities is dumb, as I’m the one who started the ball rolling. When we began this team phone thing, there were 10 of us. That meant phones once every other week. Due to reassignment and leave, there are now 6 of us covering 8.5 caseloads. One caseload is being filled, but by the time she is able to be on phones, someone else will be on maternity leave. She comes back and another is retiring. Fuck that. I can’t handle 40+ calls a day, especially when time is spent attempting to decipher the dreck Velcro calls notes, or giving a client the same damn answer s/he received yesterday (worker shopping is becoming popular). That’s after hoping the client left any info so we can figure out who the hell they are.
I’m sick of it.
In the past, I’ve stood down in this conversation, as while I would prefer to handle my own calls, I can see the value in other people having an eye on my work. I’m done standing down, and your whining isn’t going to work. Throw a situation at me, I will toss you a list of solutions, all acceptable by management. Throw your interpretation of our work process and I will counter with the correct interpretation of our work process. You are one of the reasons why I want to disband the team approach, dude.
It’s a long way until our meeting date.
Can I share an anti-gripe? Today, someone needed an electronic copy of a record, and just happened to mention it to me, who has been maintaining copies of all those records.
No, we have no secure location for the records, so I could share them with everyone. But at least people are finding out they exist.
Heh. In 2008, I was tasked with describing a whole bunch of procedures someone else had created. I wasn’t creating them, but observing what we did and codifying it in written form (which no one had previously wanted to do).
My mandate was “please make them detailed enough that someone who has never been in this office before can follow them accurately and completely.”
So I produced lengthy written procedures of long, multi-step processes, complete with file paths and screenshots (with the relevant tabs and buttons circled in red!) including all the steps and the final disposition of each item.
“This is WAY TOO LONG,” I was told. “Make them shorter and do not go into so much detail!”
The documentation my coworker and I have put together is detailed screenshots and step by step instructions.
Yeah, the COMPLETE FUCKING MORONS* complain it’s too long and complicated, but those are the same people who complain it’s too difficult to fill out a form and want someone else to do it for them.
Thankfully few and far between.
Oh, and today’s issue.
Person from another department sends something to us for approval. I IM him and tell him that we aren’t the approvers for it. He takes about five minutes to pull up the list of approvers (that we provide to their team) and says “It says it goes to X department, is that correct?” :smack:
No, not at all. We just put that on the list as a practical joke. Dumbass.
Talking with the lady whose project all this photocopying is today, she mentioned how she hadn’t taken all the staples and double-sided pages and stickie notes and everything that has to get squared away before you can copy a file into account. I somehow managed to NOT say, “No shit!”
And my supervisor mentioned that they’re getting another photocopier in tomorrow, and they will be getting three people in on Saturday, and I might be one of them. But, I don’t want to spend eight solid hours photocopying on Saturday!
GO YOU!!! Does a happy dance in your honor. Isn’t it great when you can amaze someone?
So, what you do is make a checklist for each task. No instructions, just the steps to do the job. At the end of each point in the checklist, in small print so as to not be obtrusive include a page and line number referring them to the main manual.
Put the checklists into a different binder. There is your small and easy to read list and if anyone complains that there isn’t enough detail, point to the small print.
You won’t spend 8 hours copying anything. You will spend 6 hours prepping and at least half an hour trying to figure out how to clear out the jams on a new and unknown machine.
Dare I ask why you are copying all of those documents? Why aren’t you scanning them, saving them on a server and burning CD’s? The staples and post its and pink highlighters will still be a problem but paper is expensive and then will need to be stored as well.
Maybe I shouldn’t be asking these questions…the answers will probably make me cry.
That’s just about what I said to my husband - “I think they think that the new photocopier is going to be working at 100% right out of the box.” Did I mention that they seem to be completely clueless about everything document related?
I think it’s for an audit. I’ve never heard of that before, though - I’ve worked in many offices that have audits going on, and the auditors always come to the file cabinets, not making the file cabinets go to them.
The idea of having all these files in a digital format so they could just send them off to the auditors - well, that would have been a good idea. A FANFUCKINGTASTIC idea, even.
I pit co-workers who take their full lunch doing errands. THEN clock in, go to the bathroom, grab a bite to eat before they relieve me. My lunch is supposed to start at 1:00. Not 1:20. Then the boss thinks I’m getting back late when I roll in at 2:20. Sorry, dude. I couldn’t leave when I was supposed to.
Not really a gripe, but more like a “WTF?”: My coworker, who’s hours are 7:30 - 4:00 asked me yesterday, “What time would I have to come in if I wanted my shift to end at 4:30?”
