Oh! I have some Chef Boyardee stuff in the cupboard because it was on sale this week. Good to know it’s potentially not as annoying as Spaghetti-O’s.
Any suggestions on how I can get my kid to recognize that while dill pickles are technically a vegetable, there are perhaps others that she could eat willingly? And that there are alternative preparations of “noodle salad” that are not just elbow macaroni and pickles tossed together in a bowl?
A former co-worker had some luck coaxing her kids to try vegetables by sticking them into a jar of pickle juice overnight. She said they picked up the pickle taste but (she was pretty sure) still had nutrition.
I think she stuck with firmer vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli so the brine didn’t affect the texture too much.
Green beans can be marinated in Italian dressing and taste nothing like green beans, so that might work.
This actually sounds awesome!
A good “noodle salad” can also be made with olives…but that doesn’t help rockle’s veggie issue.
Also with zucchini. Zucchini noodles are awesome.
And… back to your regularly scheduled work gripes (I don’t have any; retired. Sorry. But I do remember summers with kids. Deepest sympathies Rockle)
I stepped in puke today at work. Ew ew ew!
Well, it was in an area where a lot of kids pass by, so it was probably some poor kid who couldn’t help puking, but still, ew.
So, eat it in front of her.
Better yet, spread out the wrapper on the edge of your desk, divide the candy into little pieces (which you arrange tastefully on top of the wrapper), and pop one into your mouth every time she walks past your desk. Extra points every time you make a “nom, nom” sound for her benefit…
Ok, so…the boss:
I think when this guy had his recent surgery on his shoulder, the doctors also removed an important part of his brain. Because, damn, it’s like the guy is turning into a textbook case of how not to act during a meeting. I mean, everybody knows how to act during a meeting–just shut up, let the Big Boss talk, answer questions if asked, and if you have to say your piece, say your piece and shut up. I don’t know, guys, I’m not sure this guy can be helped.
Sounds like Career Suicide By Self Importance. I recommend a course of non-intervention followed by therapeutic laughter after it runs its course.
Occasionally in the parking lot where I work I see small, medium, and large puddles of what looked like vomit. I thought it was weird, until I spotted the culprit at work…a large duck. Not sure that was vomit now.
I have to admit I started giggling when he insisted that we were going to have to sign AND date the SHEET OF PAPER OF GODDAMN INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE. I mean, when you make a decision this awe-inspiring, you really want to remember when you did it!
Seriously, somebody should insist on a complete physical checkup for this guy; in novels, when a character starts behaving like this, there’s a brain tumor coming up in a couple of chapters.
I wish all office meetings were as entertaining as the ones **Cognoscant **attends. We have our new Shredder Guy, kids!
I am honestly starting to wonder. We also had an incident last week where he confidently told a meeting with about 20 people that “we will not reach our sales goal this fiscal”, which is bad enough to say, but even worse when a couple days before he and I had been in a meeting where the Big Boss said “I think we WILL reach our sales goal this fiscal.” I mean, that’s pretty close to insubordination, and I think the only reason he got away with it was because I was the only other person who was in both meetings.
I know he is under one HR investigation. I can tell you he could soon be under another one, because he is starting to intimidate me over an extremely mild incident I was involved in (get this: the incident was that I raised my voice in a meeting. That’s it. No insubordination, no slander, not even any suggestion of underhanded dealing. I raised my voice in a meeting. That was it.), and falsely told me he was reporting me to HR about it. All I can figure was that he chickened out about doing that, because yesterday he presented me with an obviously falsified “memo” that he had allegedly turned in to HR…one that included his own signature but neither signature nor even name of anyone in HR. It also included another alleged “incident” that had allegedly been seen by “several witnesses,” but none of these witnesses were named and the description of the alleged incident was so vague I seriously have no idea what he is talking about. A savvier man than he would have shown me this memo and then said “I need to send this back to HR”, but no, he actually gave me a copy of it, so now I have proof when I show it to the HR rep I’ll be seeing soon about his increasingly unhinged behavior.
So yeah. Up till now things were just kind of amusing with this guy, but now things are getting really ugly really fast. I am perfectly willing to admit that I committed the apparent felony of raising my voice in a meeting. But seeing now as I have been talked to about this five times now, and each time he claims “this incident is behind us” but then brings it up again and again, threatening me with more and more punishment for the same behavior which has never occurred again…it’s really time to put a stop to this. I might be mentally ill, but smarter people have tried to mess with me and failed, and I’m not putting up with his feeble attempts at intimidation.
Not a complaint, exactly, but an observation (and I didn’t want this thread to sink too far down the list, so a bump too):
It’s been six weeks since I told them that I would be retiring in 6 months (from then, 4.5 months from now). Fewer than 95 working days (taking into account holidays and a few days vacation I have to take so that I don’t stop accruing) left.
Nothing has been done so far about replacing me. Various people have moaned about how everything is going to fall to shit around here when I’m gone, but no plans are in place to do anything about it. And I find that I just.don’t.care. I’m trying to find ways to wean people off from depending on me to do things they can do for themselves, but if they don’t learn, and if they don’t replace me, well, it’s no skin off my nose.
The things I would need to pass on require training and experience to take over seamlessly. I guess it won’t be seamless. Maybe some things will turn to shit. They’ll get along somehow and I won’t care.
I have zero interest in coming back as a contractor, even at a high rate of pay, because when I am done here, I will be done. That’s why I gave them 6 months’ notice, so that wouldn’t be necessary. Anyway, they are allergic to high rates of pay, so that’s pretty much off the table for them too.
Here I sit, more and more redundant. I didn’t think I would have time to count down the days, but I do.
Seriously. Sign me up as a guest speaker for the next big meeting he’s scheduled to present in. Put it down as workplace stress management techniques.
I’ll come in with a matched set of bat’leths and the fun will begin.
At the first of this month I was told I was no longer on salary but paid on a per visit rate, which cuts my pay by $3 per hour. This didn’t sit too well with me, plus the boss is being a bitch to me and asking my coworkers if they have complaints about me. I’ve seen this before and know what it means: she is targeting me and will hound me with petty crap until I quit. So I dust off the resume and now have a new job lined up, Monday 6/8 I turn in my 2 week notice. I see my clients that day, and Tuesday. Tuesday evening get a text saying I have been taken of the schedule for the rest of the week with the BS excuse “so I can finish up my paperwork.” No client visits=no pay.
I spent most of yesterday correcting tiny omissions and electronically signing documents after the office staff approves them. Some of the stuff is from 6 months ago that has been roundly ignored since I turned it in in January and now they are going all Defcon 1 and insisting I take care of it NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. Today I got 2 texts asking me to sign 2 documents, 3 hours apart.:rolleyes:
So far I still have clients on the schedule for next week, but those will probably be reassigned. If the boss would just release me, I could start at the new office. Or I could just enjoy the time off and go on a short vacation. But she enjoys abusing her power and I have 4 week’s vacation pay riding on this (I have been informed if I don’t “complete*” my two week’s notice, I won’t get my vacation pay.) ARRRRRGH!
*I am told I must be available to see clients as needed.
One of the first things I tell new team members, whether they be outside or internal hires, is to not filter their email.
“I know we get a lot of email, and it can be really overwhelming, and it’s very tempting to set up a bunch of filters to get it under control. I strongly encourage you not to do this, or at least hold off until you’ve been here a few months. The reason is it can take you a while to learn the language of this work. You might set up a filter using certain keywords and not realize you’re blocking important emails. Also, filters mean you take longer to see emails, and that’s not good.”
Of course, EVERYFUCKINGBODY promptly decides they know better than me and sets up a shit ton of breathtakingly stupid filters.
Current Dumbshit somehow configured things so that he only sees emails from clients he’s dealt with before. Everything else disappears into the ether. So if someone he personally has not exchanged emails with sends him something, he does not see it. Being only 3 months in, this happens a lot.
Me: Did you see [new-to-him client]'s email?
DS: Who…?
Me: Sent at 1:29pm, about the Potato project. You should answer, it’s been 3 hours.
DS: I don’t know who that is. (scroll scroll scroll through several folders)
…
(still searching)
He also set up filters to route emails from clients to folders outside his inbox, into folders with the name of the sender. Rather than have one inbox where he can see all 8 clients’ emails, he now has 8 separate folders that of course he does not regularly check.
Yesterday, a client emailed early in the morning asking for a file ETA. He didn’t see it. Client emailed again early afternoon, asking why no one was responding.
Me: [Dumbshit], did you see Client’s email?
DS: Client…? (he starts digging through his folders)
Me: Yes, she asked for an ETA. [Our boss] answered her already, but I want to be sure you saw it.
DS: (silence, still looking)
Me: Why didn’t you see it? Is it filtered out? Are you checking your folders–
DS: (irritatedly) YEAH! I TOTALLY CHECK MY FOLDERS, GEEK.
…
(still searching)
If it takes someone more than 30 seconds (being generous) to find an email that came in TODAY, they’re a fucking moron.
Also, as he kept searching, I might have said “CNTL + Shift + F”
As I said to a co-worker yesterday about some of the people we work with…
“Email is the premier communications tool of Corporate America. I don’t understand how people can get away with ignoring it or using it so poorly.”
Roderick Femm, enjoy being retired! When you’re out the door, it’s not your problem any more!
My gripe for the day: My supervisor can’t just ask me to do something. She’ll ask me for an update on a project I’m working on, and then she’ll freak out because I’m not doing what she thinks I should be doing at this point in the project (which of course she has not asked me to do). It would be so much easier if she would just tell me what she wants me to do. I keep checking, but I’m still not psychic.
One of my co-workers yelled at me today for absolutely no reason. She threw a temper tantrum and ranted at me out of the blue, no provocation. She’s not in my department, which is good, because I don’t want to be around her at all. Fortunately she doesn’t work in my building usually, so I probably won’t have to see her much. If I talked to someone that way, I would expect to go home jobless that very evening. We are reporting it to HRD and I’m going to talk to her supervisor, but I don’t have high hopes that she’s going to get any real consequences. **
**