Workplace griping, anyone?

The BBQ Pit
7962

So, back here I mentioned how I finally got the Operations guys to stop complaining long enough to take the sample which let me figure out that our supplier was billing us for 25% caustic, but maybe only sending 16%. Purchasing finally has their response to the supplier nonconformance I filled out, and their solution to how they can ensure they no longer send us out-of-spec caustic is… we should adjust our purchase specification.

Um. No.

As it turns out, they never actually test what they are sending us to make sure it is what they say it is. They get a barge of 50% caustic with an analysis on that, which is unloaded into a tank. Then, the truck driver half-fills his truck from that tank, then puts in the same amount of water, then drives it over to us where we receive an analysis they’ve calculated from the tank analysis.

Good Og. :smack: Well, at least we have a caustic meter to track our usage… and I can get Engineering to pull specific gravity into the control system to monitor in case they’re selling us water again. Except it turns out, the meter’s specific gravity reading is way off. And hasn’t been PM’ed since ~2001.

But that’s okay – we monitor pH on what we add the caustic to! Well… turns out that the lab switched over to cheaper pH electrodes last year. They’ve been giving funky results a lot lately, so I keep making them change the electrodes. Last Friday, someone read the instructions for the “new” electrodes – which specifically state do not store in DI water. Which is what they’d been doing since switching to the new electrodes… last year.

Well, NOW they’re being stored in pH4 buffer as instructed, so what’s the problem, amirite?

sigh

7963

Lightray, when the plant goes away in a mushroom cloud, and the shockwave blows by, you can wiggle your finger and say ‘Told you so!’

7964

Don’t just wiggle your fingers, tell them like this.

7965

Ah, no chance of things blowing up*; all this stupid will do is make filtration very slow (which it has been). But I’ve long since perfected conveying my irritated disdain via The Look**. Makes meetings quite efficient, really.

  • Unless my head does, from exposure to too much stupid. It could happen.
    ** Yes, that’s what they call it: “He gave me The Look.” “What did you do now?”
7966

Mini and workplace: the guy who fills our soda machines puts the new ones in front instead of in back, so that the unwary end up with room temperature sodas for an hour or two. Thanks, you jerk!

7967

We’re a very small newspaper, so no HR or legal department. I have called the issue to the boss’ attention, though. She’s working on a clear policy on what will happen the next time anybody gets caught.

7968

What may follow is a series of mini pits about one of the colleagues in the plumbing firm I work for. It’s not a plumbing firm, but its close enough.

Gripe 1. One of our offices reported a leaky tap, so I decided to send Bill the plumber to office B. Office B is 40 miles away from Bill’s house, and that’s where Bill will be starting his journey - he has his own spanners and doesn’t have to come into head office first. Mabel, my geographically challenged colleague, takes me to task, telling me that office B is too far away because it is in the countryside, and that’s too far to send Bill. Despite being the only plumber available, Bill should only be sent to office C which is in the neighbouring city. I have to think of the travel expenses that Bill might claim for his trip out into the country.

I Googled the distance from Bill’s house to office B then from house to office C. Office C is 46 miles away, and Bill will have to deal with a busy motorway plus urban traffic to get to office C. Office B involves 6 miles less travel, and uses a very quiet, straight rural road.

When I point this out to Mabel, she is not amused. She is exceptionally unhappy when I suggest that I spend a bit of time calculating road distances between our plumbers homes and the offices they work in. Apparently this would not be useful.

Using Google Maps is apparently not worth the effort. Or it might involve admitting that the new guy actually does some independent thinking.

Gripe 2. To book a plumber onto a site, I have to update one spreadsheet; two paper diaries; one paper calendar to show that the plumber worked in offices A, B and D that month and the days; another paper calendar for each individual office to show that the offices had plumbers Bill, Ted and Rufus and the days they worked; a database to ensure they get paid; another database to give them mileage. If they are canceled, I have to update all of the above, plus another spreadsheet and another calendar. And every day, the whole lot has to be cross checked.

Of course, this is Mabel’s system, and to suggest that change may lead to efficiency makes for a very frosty atmosphere from her side of the desk.

I am a temp, doing a job that is currently being advertised, so until the new person gets here I will have a job. I could apply for the job, but I would rather take my chances getting another agency post than have to work long term with such an awful system. While I could redesign the system, I really can’t be arsed with the battle to get any changes past Mabel.

7969

One of the ladies at work had a birthday lunch today; she selected a local Italian restaurant. Despite the overall nastiness of the city I work in, there are a couple of decent places to eat – one of which is this restaurant. It’s nothing fancy – my meal is usually about $10, including garlic bread, a drink, and tip – but it’s tasty. Our orders had been called in prior to our arrival, so by the time we were seated the waitress was already bringing out the orders. I should mention that one of the features of this restaurant are its meat salads – beds of lettuce with rolls of deli meats on top. There are at least two varieties, a chef’s salad and an Italian salad. The chef’s has roast beef/ham/turkey rolls, while the Italian has salami/ham/turkey(?) rolls.

One lady (we’ll call her Blanche) received her chef’s salad, and immediately began complaining (very loudly) to the waitress. “Are you sure this is the chef’s salad? This isn’t what I ordered! This looks like the Eye-talian! The Eye-talian salad is a dollar more, and I’m not paying a dollar more for something I didn’t order!” The waitress was very accommodating, and offered to bring her a replacement chef’s salad. “No, I’ll keep it!” Blanche exclaimed, “but I’m not paying an extra dollar for something I didn’t order! I don’t see any roast beef! I don’t think this is what I ordered!” One other lady had ordered a chef’s salad; she suddenly held up a strip of meat, proclaiming it to be roast beef. “Well I saw that in mine,” said Blanche, “but I thought it was ham! I didn’t order the Eye-talian!” Addressing the waitress, Blanche continued, “I’ll eat this, but I’m just going to leave off a dollar if you charge me for the Eye-talian.” The waitress assured Blanche that she would be charged for the chef’s salad.

By then, the mood of the lunch had deteriorated. The other chef’s salad lady started grumbling, then finally announced “It shouldn’t even have salami! That’s not what salami looks like! They should be using Genoa sausage. I don’t even like this place anyway, Michelena’s [brand from the grocery store freezer] is what I prefer.” Some ladies started complaining about the prices, others about the portion sizes. (What I pay is roughly the median price for this place; I don’t think $10 is bad for a sit-down meal in a city in Bumfuck County, NC. And the portion sizes are ‘lunch-sized’; I think these ladies are used to seeing the dinner portions.) One lady complained about too much cream sauce on her pasta; several ladies complained that my marinara sauce was too watery. One lady complained about the presence of tomatoes in a salad (she only likes lettuce and chicken); she then criticized the cheese used in a dish that no one at the table had ordered.

I don’t even know if the Birthday Lady enjoyed her lunch. The waitress did bring her a slice of cheesecake, so that was nice.

7970

Tomorrow projects to be a day of high drama. The boss has said he would go apeshit if the salespeople did not turn in their Carnac reports (I.e. their predictions for next fiscal’s sales) by Friday. At close of business only 8 of 25 had. I’m not sure if this means he only goes 2/3rds apeshit, but we will see!

The fun part of all this is:

  1. We have a meeting with the Big Boss tomorrow at 9. My boss hasn’t been on time for a 9 am meeting in weeks…including the last Big Boss meeting. Can he make it? Will he burst like the guy in Scanners during the meeting?
  2. The boss is telling everyone he’s getting pissed off, but he’s telling the wrong people. He told the IT, research, and analysis staff that the salespeople were fucking up. Well, what are we supposed to do about that? Come to think of it, he’s not in charge of the salespeople either, so why is he cramming a stick up his ass over it?
  3. The Big Boss is really freaking out about making goal this year. So is everyone else…except my boss, who wants those damn Carnac reports done. So while everyone else is doing everything they can to finish this year’s sales, my boss is hollering at them to fill out reports for NEXT year. Needless to day, the Big Boss does not give a damn about the Carnac reports and didn’t even pretend to order the salespeople to do them.

Hoooooo, gonna be a tight meeting tomorrow.

7971

We’ll be here to read all about it.

7972

Question - how can any sales person have any idea how much they will ever sell the next year? Competition, demand, the economy, even the weather - all that can change sales.

7973

Our organization asks salespeople to predict sales at the account level, but only a month or two in advance. This is supposed to give them a heads-up about potential problems and maybe a chance do something about them. I suppose it depends on the business, but predicting sales a whole year in advance seems like the proverbial exercise in futility, otherwise known as wanking.

7974

That varies a lot depending on your market. I’ve had customers whose predicted sales volumes were “as much as we can produce”; what they couldn’t predict is the prices or who they would be selling to, but how much? As much as the factory can make!

7975

Something was not done that should have been done. I’m wondering how long it’s going to be until my supervisor throws me under the bus for something that she was responsible for. :mad:

7976

Question: if I’m a stay-at-home mom for the summer, can I complain about my “workplace”? Because I am SICK TO DEATH of Spaghetti-O’s and I’d like to whinge about it.

7977

I went to the grocery store before work, and they had a king-sized version of my supervisor’s favorite candy. I’m not a totally horrible person, so I bought it and I was going to give it to her, but then I thought about some of the awful things she’s done and now I’m not sure I want to. :frowning:

7978

Based on my childhood memories, I think you should give Chef Boyardee a try. Franco-American stuff was always so sweet-tasting to me.

:slight_smile:

7979

So the question is: Is your supervisor on a diet? :wink:

7980

Our company’s new owner came in today to do what he called a “Coffee Talk” (not that there was coffee on offer), basically the quarterly info about the company. Since this was the first time he’d addressed us as the owner, he also spent quite a bit of time telling us all about the history of the buying company and our company and how we complement each other (unless a division isn’t making a set profit, in which case, bye-bye!). I think I slept through a lot of this. Then he addressed a few things that are different between the two companies and how things will change to reconcile. And then someone asked him about the telecommute policy.

Telecommuting on a regular basis is, apparently, a “no-no”. What does he think we are, 6? A “no-no”? Really? And it’s a “no-no” because he thinks people need to be in each other’s actual physical presence to work together effectively.

Welcome to the 1970s, folks.

7981

Hah! I like the way you think…but no, she exercises a lot, so she can eat large quantities of high-calorie food with no consequences.