Wow! That sounds asinine. I worked at a trailer manufacturer when it was take over by another company and, except for one meeting, you wouldn’t have known the difference. Things just went on as normal.
There is something near my office that is vibrating, but only does so in short bursts.
By the time I get up from my desk and step outside of my office, the noise has stopped, and when I look at people nearby, nobody else seems to have noticed it. It’s driving me mad.
I suspect a vibrating Annoy-a-Tron.
** bzzt **
That was my very first thought, too.
bsszzzzttt!
Grr! Heard it again, and walked out of my office and approached the cubicle of an older co-worker. He just moved to this part of the building and when he asked what I was doing, I told him about the vibrating, drawing a parallel to “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
Not only did he not hear the vibrating, but he’d never heard of the famous short story by Edgar Allen Poe, so my comparison was met with a blank stare. (He’s at least 15 years older than me, so I can’t believe he’d never heard about it!)
If this buzzing keeps up, I fully expect him to request a new workspace by the end of the week because I’ve now made it my personal mission to get to the bottom of the noise.
A few years back, my summer intern was the daughter of my lab tech. She secretly acquired an annoyatron, and they spent the entire summer hiding it in each other’s offices. In the drop-down ceiling. Taped to the underside of a desk. Dropped behind a file cabinet. That sort of thing.
Next summer, before she came back to work, her father took apart the baseboard in her bedroom at home, and hid the annoyatron there. Diabolical.
Start counting your enemies/friends, Calatin…
Corporate takeover Day 2.
We were supposed to meet with the new boss and agree on our pay but that never happened. I never saw him today. I did walk by his office and hear his voice, so I guess he was there. Still haven’t met him but I did find out his name today, so I’m making some real career progress here!
Our remaining manager has been talking to him and did confirm that we’re getting paid even if we haven’t yet agreed on our pay and finished our paperwork. Our paperwork includes a non-disclosure agreement that forbids internet posts about the company, so if I shut up abruptly, it means I drank the kool-aid and went full blown corporate.
All the people who got $10k were working pretty hard today. Right now they’re in “keep everyone working” mode, but there are supposed to be a lot of changes in 90 days. That bonus will be long forgotten by then and I’m pretty sure they’ll either be gone or asking for another bonus.
One upset worker asked the corporate HR person yesterday why no one else got a retention bonus and was told “You’re easily replaceable.” His position is actually nearly impossible to fill.
One person in my department went ballistic over the $10k yesterday. He marched into the office and told our manager “We’re obviously not important. These people get $10k while no one will even talk to us. They’re treating us like rats! We’re nothing more than rats to them! I’m gonna go home and give it some thought as to whether I want to work for people who treat us like rats!” Then he left half an hour early.
Today our manager told us that the people who didn’t get the $10,000 retention bonus will be getting a cool $250.
A little while after the $250 was announced today, I went to the rat guy and asked him what he thought. “I dunno. I guess I’ll give the place a try. I’m gonna work extra hard so maybe when the 90 days is up I’ll be able to get a raise.”
Everybody has a price I guess.
QUICK! Tell us the old and new names of the company you work for BEFORE you become subject to the NDA!
I hate people.
All people.
I have bit an inappropriate number of heads off at work this week.
In fact, I almost preemptively apologized to one co-worker for the snarliness that was almost sure to follow.
At any rate, it’s a darn good thing I’ve got the next two days off work.
Maybe I can be civil again by Saturday.
If I can hurry up and find another job I’ll never be subject to the NDA.
So, day 3.
At the company are 5 people whose jobs are hard to explain. They’re sort of sales people but also manager-types. They deal with clients, get the work and manage it, the workers do it. Well, one didn’t come in Monday, and since the takeover, the leader of those 5 has become the real leader of the company and tried to stick up for everyone. He’s interfaced with the corporate people and tried to make this go well, so he’s too busy to do his normal duties. Being two men down has put things in a pinch already.
At the end of the day yesterday, they all met with corporate and were told that their pay would go from salary+commission to hourly+ some sort of bonus which will be decided in 90 days but generally falls between $X and $Y. Apparently it was a significant pay cut so two of them didn’t show up today. That leaves the leader/manager and one other guy remaining. The one remaining is looking for a way out and the manager says if that guy goes, so will he.
If they both go, we’ll lose our biggest client who gives us half our business. Before the takeover, that client said as long as it was the same people doing the same quality work, they didn’t forsee any changes in our relationship. Bless 'em for saying that, I think a lot has hinged on that simple statement. I think that’s why the $10k bonus happened, to keep our people and keep that client. That client company is like family to many of us and I can’t help but think the phrasing was a little more personal than business.
Oh, and the new boss is off for the rest of the week so I’m sure I’ll have nothing new to report with him gone and everything running so silky smooth. :rolleyes:
Apparently my current client can’t live without me. The list of “things for Nava to do” I had on Monday was… amazingly long and varied.
Now if they could kindly give me the accesses and permissions I need in order to do the ones which are my current top priority, that would be just sweet!
I pit HR busy work - PSP (Personal Safety Plan), LQB (Living Quality Behaviors), Professional Profiles, Development Plan, Perrformance Management Process.
I hate this sort of crap with so much hate. This is the reason I never wanted to go corporate again. If I quit this (rather easy and pays well) job, it will be over being nannied by HR.
BAH!
So, today “at work” has been interesting. I was late this morning, and while stuck in the bridge trafficjam my phone started buzzing with dozens of (apparently) frantic texts. Which I couldn’t answer (in traffic), but seemed to be from my boss…
By the time I’d gotten to the exit and could start looking for a place to pull over, she’d called me, to ask where I was and was I safe and was I in the plant if not GO HOME. About which time, I got to the turnoff to the plant, which was being blocked by police and fire.
Somewhat perturbing; I work in a chemical plant. So I started heading home, but did stop to read some of the texts. Sending everyone home. And one coworker mentioning he’d heard a loud BOOM while pulling into the parking lot at work before everyone was turned away. Not good; chemical plant, remember?
Got all the way back home. No more news. Frantic emails from one of our trucking terminals, though, so I headed back into traffic again to check out what was up there. I’d gotten an update email en route, so we shared information: plant lost power, main line blew, fell onto the road between our plant and the one across the street, caught fire, which apparently ignited sewer gas, which popped sewer manways off, which took out more power lines…
Annnd, I’m not at work. Obviously. They apparently sent everyone home except a safety watch staff. No word of when things will be restored, beyond a vague “at least 24 hours”. And now, e-mail is down, too! So I can’t get updates and can’t really work from home either. sheesh.
Dear boss,
Why, after telling me in an exasperated, snotty tone, to basically figure out myself where to find the details of a complicated transaction made over ten years ago, details of which are needed by the corporate office, details of which you have the most knowledge, do you start to question my final response to the corporate office about this transaction, asking me where I got the numbers? I couldn’t GET the numbers because you were so fucking uncooperative. I had to figure out a best guess to this shit on my own. Shit that, come to find our, had NOTHING to do with my job in the first place! And I had to respond to the corporate office TODAY because I’m not going to be here tomorrow, and you will be gone all next week.
Don’t get involved in something you know everything about, yet want someone else to deal with. What would be nice is either a) a gesture showing some kind of gratitude that I took care of it, or b) shutting the fuck up completely, preferably the latter. Don’t treat me as if I’m incompetent when in fact I’m smart enough to deduce an answer to something you’ve deliberately made a mystery by withholding information.
Bitch.
My biggest workplace gripe is “moody women” :mad:
I don’t get that sort of thing, but I’m socially inept. Maybe it’s some kind of weird ‘extrovert’ thing.
I once worked for a company that had 35 ‘consultants’ (employees, contracted out IT) led by a Manager, and a team of 5-6 developers led by a Vice President. The owner freely admitted that the consultants brought in 90% of company revenues while the developers spent all of it.
He announces a stock option/ownership plan. Then tries to back out of it, then finally does it. Most of us got a whopping 500 shares. His “Key Players” got 10,000 shares, and he made a huge deal out of that at the announcement meeting. People comparing what they got and finding out who those ‘key players’ were after the speech was an interesting experience. People talking about leaving.
Company was dead in a year for a lot of reasons, but that was probably one of them.
27 cents. That’s all the difference amounts to. 27 fecking cents. Who but OCD co-worker would keep our finance office on the phone for TWO HOURS over a 27 cent difference between her records and those in the finance office? I am so tempted to reach into my pocket and cram that 27 cents into her ear.
It doesn’t help that her voice carries over cubicle walls. It doesn’t help that her voice is an annoying monotone drone. Those of us within earshot (half the office) have taken to wearing headphones just to drown her out. If she’s not rabbiting on about 27 cents, she’s droning on and on with a committee member on the other side of the country about what is and isn’t allowed on an expense claim. Just send him the damn travel and expense policy; that’s why we have it in electronic form.:smack:
I need to go home. Now.
She must be related to our marketing guys. If they actually do anything besides scrutinize their expense reports I don’t know what it is.
Corporate takeover Day 4 and 5.
Day 4. So, remember the manager that’s risen up and stuck up for everyone and tried to keep the company together…? I walked in to work yesterday and he was sitting in the breakroom crying. Apparently the new bosses had told him to do some shady stuff and he said he wouldn’t put his name on work like that nor would he ask any of his employees to put their name on it, and so he quit. However… he came back near the end of the day, called a meeting and apologized, said he had a nervous breakdown because of all the stress but was back and ready to get back to work. I don’t know if our corporate overlords gave in to his demands that we would take pride in our work or they paid him enough to compromise his principals. Everybody has a price.
Day 5. He talked to me! He talked to me! Our new boss talked to me today. I didn’t think he was supposed to be there today but he showed up about 2pm. I had been outside working for a few minutes and as I walked back in sweating from the 90 degree weather he said “Keeping warm?” “Oh yeah, it’s nice and cozy out there.” That was that.
I think I’m still supposed to meet with him to discuss my pay. I was supposed to Monday or Tuesday and it never happened. I guess I’ll have to corner him.
It’s been a helluva week.