Last week, I bitched about the burned popcorn smell to some ladies in the restroom. (The restroom is behind the break room, so the burned smell was especially powerful.) Turns out that the one who burned the popcorn was in there too. She claimed that the popcorn was old, and we were just smelling the burned bag.
I’ve always subscribed to the theory that people who do this are motivated by a desire to NOT have people ask them to share their popcorn.
So, remember a long time ago when I was working somewhere and living with my family and then the guy who harassed my wife was coming to be my boss and I had to move 1,400 miles to get away from him? Turns out it was the right decision.
Last week my best friend from my old job got canned after having a “minor argument” with the new boss. But he didn’t get canned right away, no, they waited for his wife–who works in Human Resources–to go on vacation so they could can him without her knowing about it. He’d been working there 11 years and they fired him over a nothing incident–I’ve heard that from multiple sources. Rumor has it this won’t be the last. Another friend of mine is lining up her retirement to start ASAP, because apparently this guy is also starting to ding people for showing up “late” if they show at 8:35 (there has never been a requirement to show up at 8:30, especially if, as a lot of people there do, you have to work late at night), and starting to butt into things he knows nothing about. Meanwhile the other half of the office not run by him has fallen into disrepair, with salespeople lolling about on Facebook all day and nothing getting sold.
They did, after six months, find a replacement for me, but apparently he is already a target of the boss’s wrath. It is sad to watch the office being wrecked, but as I am pulling 60-hour work weeks here there’s little I can do but answer the odd e-mail from old friends. One person I related this story to here threw up her hands and asked “why are there people who act like that?” I only wish I knew. I’d be typing this sitting next to my wife and kids if there weren’t.
You just keep cracking those nuts, co-worker two desks away. One after another after another. Crackle, crackle, pop, crunch. Just keep doing it. For half an hour at a time!
If I would’ve known that my boss and one of his two assistants were going to be gone for the day, I wouldn’t have agreed to reschedule a conference call to 1:30 on a Friday afternoon.
Luckily, I’m on extremely good terms w/ the other party, and sent her an email joking with her, telling her that she should feel extremely good about herself, that I am sticking around so that we can talk.
Maybe she’ll pick up on the hint, but even if she doesn’t, I won’t mind… too much.
Yeah, it seems like everyone here is working from home, taking the afternoon off or on vacation. I think I myself might head out at 3 just cuz.
So, we have about twelve production units at the (chemical) plant I work at. The idea is that each chemist/engineer in our quality/tech support group is responsible for 2. I have 5. The combo of units was just way too much work for one person, so about a year ago they hired someone and she got one of my harder units. (I got an “easy” one in return. ha!)
Anyway, she’s on vacation for a week, and that unit is having a meltdown of epic proportions. So guess who gets to fill in? My units are also plagued by problems… so I get to have crazy day because I’m now responsible for fixing HALF of the plant’s production problems.
Meanwhile, if I happen to take a day off? No one to fill in. I was sick a couple weeks ago, and was basically on the phone or computer with the plant the whole day (fortunately, both close to the bathroom…).
In related news, we’re expanding in Asia, starting with production of one of the products I’m the company expert for. But they’re dithering about hiring someone early enough to actually learn about that process – takes ~12 months; timeline has ~6 months left – because “well, they can just call [Lightray]”. Um, no. There will be more talkings with the boss about this. sheesh.
… and of course, just as I was getting ready to head out, I got an email from my other boss, asking me to review a 4.5k word contract. Luckily, a lot of it is boilerplate language, and the assignment is more for due diligence than for substantial edits and commentary.
Read it over, wrote up two paragraphs of notes - basically restating certain terms and calling them to his attention. Think I’ll leave around 4, giving him time to get to my email and acknowledge receipt.
Not my job but.
Friday afternoon. Supercheap hotel in Nancy, France. The booking.com listing indicates that reception opens only at certain times, please advise if you’ll arrive outside those hours and we’ll make arrangements.
I got there about 4:30, Reception opened again at 5, so I opened my book and set out to wait. At 5-just-rung, a guy rushes over and starts staring through the glass without ringing the clearly marked bell.
I finish the chapter, get up and ring the bell.
He barks “I already did that! Before!” Well, this being France and a hotel small enough to be family owned and managed, opening hours means those are the hours they’re opened. They’re not going to forego their lunch break because of you.
The receptionist walks out to her desk and opens the door for us. Dude barks his name and “I hope there IS a parking space!”
“Well, not on site, as our ad says, there is private parking nearby” (enclosed garage, rather than pay-per-hour on the street) “it’s just down the street one block”.
“WHAT! But it must be included! When there is no parking, I GO!”
I’m thinking ok, so you do this often, you can’t read, you expect a 30€/night hotel to include parking in the middle of a busy town, and you’re a bully.
He went “to look at the parking”, came back, barked “I GO! This is not acceptable! All hotels I stay at must include parking!” and left.
… we watch him go and I ask “aren’t you still getting paid?” (late cancellation, it’s in the conditions of the booking).
“U-hu!”
“OK then!”
She’s still getting paid the same amount he would have paid if he’d stayed, she doesn’t have to clean the room or deal with his shit (and he sounded like the kind of guy who leaves the room in a state that makes you wonder whether to have it all bleached or rename it the Attila Suite and charge extra, but Hygiene wouldn’t accept it so better go with the bleach), and… what, did he expect to leave her crying?
My guess is he pulls that shit constantly to get parking comped, something which was not possible in this case as the garage is not owned by the hotel. But it’s a pity you can’t rate other guests, I’d like to give him negative numbers.
I see people like this all the time. Most of them are miserable people with no sense of control over their own lives, who spend most of their time getting pushed around by other people or circumstances or what have you and the only time they feel control is when they treat other people the way they have been treated themselves. The rest of them think that being bullies lets other people know that they are Important People.
That doesn’t mean that they aren’t complete assholes, though. As I frequently remind my co-workers, “We only have to deal with them until they leave. They have to live with themselves. Whose really coming out ahead here?” And then we laugh our evil laughs.
When we moved to our temporary location a lot of people wound up sitting by people they hadn’t sat by before. There’s this lady I see a lot now, I have no idea who she is or what she does, all I ever see is her walking around the floor. Or I should say stomping around the floor. She’s a tiny thing but has about the heaviest footsteps I’ve ever heard. She goes past my desk at least eight or nine times a day. The stomping was starting to fade into the general background noise until this week… when she felt the need to acquire a pair of shoes with jingly buckles on them.
So now instead of just stomping around it’s jingleSTOMPjingleSTOMPjingleSTOMPjingleSTOMP.
Again, eight or nine times a day past my desk. My deskmate and I came up with a plan to install a tripwire and a net to snare her and then steal her shoes.
Maybe tell her about it? I used to wear silver bells on my boots until someone told me that hearing me walk was making him crazy. I thought it was a happy noise until that. It won’t stop her from stomping, some people just walk heavy, but it might make the shoes go away. I still wear bells on my boots whilst in crowds who are also wearing bells and spurs, but not at work.
Or just install the trip wire and post back here…with a utube video if possible 
only workplace gripe I have now is a older unattractive women asking me am I married and do I have kids
why can’t I get that question from the younger cuter women?
I work in a retirement home. The last time I heard these questions, they were coming from a 99-year-old woman.
Though, when I told her I’d never been married and had no children, despite being 48 years old, she said, “Good for you!”
Like I told her, “If I never get married or have kids, I’lll never have to pay alimony or child support!”
Ahh, but he can get back at the hotel by going on some site and giving them a very low review and accuse them of all kinds of stuff. Sadly then the next potential guest really has no idea of which reviewers are trustworthy or not.
But that is why I’m planning on waiting for my Booking review until I see if he’s had the bollocks to put up one… ok, where is my :halo: smiley?
My new mantra:
“Not my circus. Not my monkeys.”
Looking for a new job.
That is all.
Please tell me that your code name for this is Operation Bojangles. 
I have idiots on my job searching for a new job on their work computer:eek:
So, today was the day that our mom and pop company was taken over by a corporation (previous post). It was… strange.
At our meeting with the corporate district manager last week he said we were supposed to fill out paperwork with an HR rep then meet with the new general manager to agree on our pay, then we’re hired. The pay is tricky for many people because of commissions, bonuses etc. For example, I get a bonus, but this company doesn’t do bonuses, so my bonus will go away and it’s supposed to translate to a raise when I meet with the GM.
Our company hours are 8am-5pm. The district manager had also said the hours would change to 7:30-5:30 but he gave us some paperwork that said the hours would be 8-6. I didn’t know when to be there, and I have a problem where I can’t work past 5, but he said they’d be fine with it, just bring it up with the GM.
So, no one knew what time to be at work today. I just showed up at 7:45 and piddled around, not sure what to do and not sure if I was getting paid since I’m not an employee until I meet with HR then the manager. It took a while for the corporate people to show up. I joked “Hmm, trickling in at 8:20ish, I might get along with these people after all!”
To be fair, the only people they had were our new general manager, an HR rep to get us on the company payroll, and some IT people who are only in town for a few days. I sort of expected the new head honcho to be there on time though. I never did meet him and am not sure what his name is, I just piddled around the rest of the day. No one came to meet us or tell us anything.
I finally walked in and asked the HR lady what we needed to do about paperwork. She said she was getting ready to do a meeting, just stick around. The “meeting” was just her taking 5-6 people at a time into an office to fill out paperwork and answer questions. She claimed to be able to answer any question we may have about any aspect of our job, but still couldn’t tell me what our hours of operation were. I guess I’ll keep working 8-5 until told otherwise.
They’ve had their IT techs working on premises since 5PM Friday. This afternoon, I asked one for a new computer and got it. While showing her where it would go, I took her through a room that is located in the front middle of the building. She said she’d never been in that room. This room isn’t hidden in any way and is actually open to other rooms on three sides. It’s like working all weekend in a restaurant and not knowing where the bar is located. She looked in the corner of the room and saw the jumble of a hundreds of wires going to and from various boxes attached to the wall. “Wow, this is your phone system, internet junction, and everything. Why didn’t someone tell me this was here?!”
Well, I’ve worked there 12 years, I ran half the CAT5 and installed half the computers. I could probably be of great help, if only they were interested in, you know, meeting me or learning my name.
A few people already jumped ship for other jobs, less than I thought actually, and a few were talking about doing so today. I guess they freaked, so toward the end of the day, they called a meeting where they reassured everyone that they didn’t want anyone to leave, that WE were the company and they wanted every single one of us to continue working there. “Just give us a shot. Give us a few days or a couple weeks, we think you’ll see that very little will change.” Then they announced that a certain ten people would get $10k to stay.
Uh, probably shouldn’t have had the other 20 people attend that meeting, new boss.
I know those people are important, but not incredibly so, and only two of them talked about leaving. Corporate threw $100k at that group to let them know how important they are, and $0 at everyone else. Judging by the reactions, I’d say that may lose them more people that it helped keep.
I still don’t know what time to be at work tomorrow.