Will they let you reschedule the interview? I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
We can add the Horrible Bosses movies to the list of trainings provided by our Human Resources department. It might actually be better than the training they do provide for supervisors. Somehow those trainings always end up making things worse for the peons.
Horrible Bosses 2 comes out soon, so there’s another chance for her to learn some useful bossing skills.
Ugh, matlab. Statisticians* should not try to be programmers.
However, when that sort of thing has bolluxed me up in Excel, I’ve had success toggling on the European standards – suddenly, Excel understands that 01-11-14 is supposed to be November, not January. And this comes up quite a lot for me, because our company programmers apparently have a competition to figure out how to format the date fields in our hundreds of databases differently in each one – in some it’s text, or European formatting, or Date-and-Time in one field, or Date and Time in separate fields, or a numeric string… And since they’ve thought to put in automatic Export-to-Excel functions in some of the database interfaces, half the time the date field gets stuck into a merged column or with special characters that cause matlab or Minitab or whatever to throw fits.
In revenge, when I have to go talk to the programmer to point out why the nine-decimal numeric format isn’t a useful Date field, I point it out on their computer by touching their screen for emphasis.
So I guess my real recommendation is: go find the database person, and leave fingerprint smudges on his/her computer screen as revenge.
- Nor Germans, curse you SAP!
I run a grain scale house. For the past six weeks we have been on harvest hours, 11 hrs/day 7 days/week, with hardly anything coming in because the company we contract with didn’t set their basises competitively so farmers went elsewhere.
I knew it was wrong and we shouldn’t have been here for 11 hours a day for just 3-4 trucks. And I hated it. My super has some, ah, issues and does not EVER shut up. Sheer torture, but I digress. I mentioned this several times, but super would decide that if just one truck showed up we’d have to stay. I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to find some relief.
Well, Monday Big Boss calls my super. They agreed that harvest was over and we should go back to regular hours. Now, did Big Boss call the grain company to find out why they screwed up so badly? No. Did he correctly place the blame on super for setting the hours badly and wasting his money and our time? No. Instead he cut MY hours by 5 a week because he says he had to pay us too much money. Super makes much more money than I do, and this is all directly due to his actions, but i must pay the price. He got off scott-free. Even gets overtime when he wants it.
I’m the only woman out here. Make of that what you will.
Did she put it on an expense report?
The sequel’s coming soon. More learning.
To be accurate, that one is a mix of German, Indian, Spaniard and who knows what the fuck else, by now.
I was soooo happy when I learned how to use “today’s date” for loads, instead of having to figure out what format was each particular user sending. People appear to have a lot more issues grasping the idea of following a specific date format than grasping “ok, everybody: decimal marker is a DOT, and any negative numbers have the dash in FRONT”.
Something my coworker just said:
“I don’t have a dog in this…conversation.”
Because “fight” is too adversarial, I guess.
Annnnnnnd of course, on one of the data streams, some fuckwit decided to change the time back an hour , so now I have to figure out when exactly that happened , because it would not have happened at 2am , which would be awkward but at least easy to track down, nope, the logging systems are set to a timezone with no daylight savings, so they don’t automatically change during a data logging run, so some fuckwit at some unknown time change the fecking time. ISO8601 people, it’s that , or the wall.
I honestly don’t know how the fuck my co-worker manages to function in day-to-day life.
This afternoon Non-Functioning Co-worker apparently decides she must print something. I know this because she stands near the office door and declares, “The printer won’t work.” Since this isn’t directed at me, I keep working and don’t respond. Co-worker addresses the air two or three more times in the next five minutes, and finally accepts the office gods are fickle and won’t intervene today. Instead she actually walks over to the printer and begins describing her attempts to no one. “I hit the green button. Shouldn’t that do something? The toner light’s on, but the toner light’s always on*. Is the computer plugged in?”
I have to make a phone call, and am grateful to note she’s given up on talking the printer into submission and is putting in a new toner cartridge. The fact that she’s taking a logical step should have set off an alarm.
I finish the call and find her standing in the door with a look of glassy-eyed confusion.
“Well, I tried putting in toner, but it won’t go in right.”
That’s because she pulled out the cartridge and drum (good first step), put the whole thing aside and attempted to put in the new cartridge without the drum. A mere mortal would have stopped when it became clear something was wrong. But not NFC. She managed to jam it at an awkward angle and kept forcing it until it was stuck tight. Only then did it occur to her something was a bit off.
After some work I managed to pull it out, place it in the drum and put it in the printer correctly. The whole time, NFC is hovering around repeating, “I guess I really screwed that up, huh?” Trying to get me to tell her it’s not her fault, it could happen to anyone. Except it is her fault, and a slow-witted toddler could do this after one lesson.
This same co-worker takes 30 minutes to load things to the shared drive, because I refuse to spend another hour walking her through a two-minute process. She once spent 10 minutes repeatedly telling me the computer wouldn’t let her log out of an email program I asked her to leave. When I asked what message came up when she tried logging off she said, “I didn’t know what you meant by ‘log off,’ so I just kept closing it and opening it back up.” Learned helplessness would be an improvement, since it would mean she’s learning something.
Off to nurse a headache.
*No it’s not.
Holy shit, Tess! Well-written and fun to read, but daaa-yum! I know her type, but yours must be their Queen.
Note to self:
In the event that you decide to apply for jobs, do NOT apply for a job at the Mall. Putting up with Friday and Saturday evening traffic there will drive you insane in short order.
I would love to know who the hell decided it would be acceptable to open my office door this afternoon, listen to my phone conversation for a bit, then close the door again. :mad: (In case you’re wondering, my office is actually split into two spaces by a partition…I sit behind this partition.)
To further complicate things, the conversation in question was a phone interview, so whoever decided to crack the door got to hear me describing my future career plans.
Somewhat of an anti-rant - they hired a new legal secretary to take the place of Useless Fired Co-worker. She’s been here a week, and so far…she’s kind of awesome. She shows up, does her work, asks questions when necessary, and follows instructions! She’s pleasant and fairly quiet. No boyfriend drama, no hours spent texting, no long rambling whining chats with other co-workers - it’s kind of weird. Soon I will be able to turn Demanding Partner’s desk over to her completely. Cross your fingers everyone, hopefully this is her real personality and she’s not just on her best behavior temporarily.
I hope so, for your sake. It’s hard to work with someone who spends their time on Facebook or texting their girl/boyfriend. Or constantly talking at a decibel level that can cause hearing damage. I could go on but I have to go to work at some point.
It’s especially hard when they’re a habitual liar and YOU take the brunt of it. BTDTDIN.
How does she manage to tie her own shoes in the morning? Her underwear is probably on inside out and backwards.
Ibuprofen should come in “Annoying Coworker” strength for those coworker-related headaches. I would buy that.
Jesus fuck lady, don’t give me that “but it wasn’t in the notes!” bullshit excuse. This is a complex assembly; the instructions regarding the purchase of all the parts exceed the allowable character length of the text box in our ordering system. This is a totally normal occurrence; engineering responds to this situation by creating a purchase specification document. The name of this document, along with the most recent revision level, are placed in the system notes. It’s not my fault if you can’t be bothered to actually read that document before placing an order. (It’s not like it’s hard to find these documents…they’re scanned and stored in their own little folder on the server.)
Ok, I’ve spent some time staring quizzically, and google offers no clues, so … 'lil help please?
WAG: Been There, Done That, Doin’ It Now?
ETA: Wild-Assed Guess
(Edited To Add)
Corporate Takeover Update, Day… who cares. Take this job and shove it.
I posted in August about the family owned company that I worked at for 12 years being sold to a corporation with a bad reputation, then I quit posting about it because, well, it bored me. Anyway, today was my last day.
Three months since the corporate takeover and not a single corporate person has spoken to me. They never asked me to train people to take my place, they never discussed any aspect of my job, they never even said “hello” or “good morning.” Not once. Obviously, on the first day the HR lady helped us fill out paperwork and all, but after that, I’ve never spoken to the corporate people I work just feet away from. It was very strange to say the least.
On the other hand, I decided to take a day off recently and put in some applications and at the first place I went, the owner chased me down in the parking lot and told me to come back in and talk. He had been handed my application, saw where I worked, how long I’d been there and knew he wanted me based on that alone. We once had a good reputation. By the time we started talking about my various skills, there was no way he was letting me walk out of there without a job.
Nothing like your last day to finally realize how important you are. All I heard was “Who’s going to do that when you’re gone?” because instead of the one job I technically do, I actually do numerous things that take a long time to master and which no one in the whole company knows how to do. And business is way down and they aren’t hiring anyone to take my place either. I could have spent the past two weeks training people to at least attempt to do those things, but… fuck 'em. No one ever asked me to, no one ever even spoke to me. I kept telling my co-workers “Next time you need this done, go to them and tell them I was the only person who knew how to do it and they should have done something to keep me.”
Most of my old co-workers are already gone and the replacements are pathetic. The British have a word that I love; “gormless,” and every new face has been more gormless that the one before. Everything they do is stupid. They want everything done fast but refuse to order materials until they’re needed. That might be ok if you can order material from across the street, but a lot of our orders are overseas. How can you expect to start a job on Monday and promise it will be done by Tuesday if you refuse to order material from Germany until Monday afternoon?
Our office layout is that we have six manager/sales people at individual desks in one big room and another office down the hall for our accountant. Corporate has no need for an on-site accountant so our accountant actually works as a highly paid receptionist now, sort of like how one of our most highly trained technicians spends his days taking out trash and sweeping the floor because he has nothing else to do. Every Tuesday and Thursday, the regional vice president comes in and sits in the accountant’s old office and has a conference call… with the six people in the office 10 feet away. When I learned that, I just thought “Yep, seems about right.”
The few remaining co-workers, and even a few people we do business with, all agree, the corporation is either a pyramid scheme or a front for the mob. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but both kind of makes sense. They are on a buying spree. Three months ago, we were the 230th company they purchased, now they’re close to 300. They buy small businesses and use them as collateral to buy the next business, but seem to not care what happens after they own them. Some day it may all come crashing down. I hope it’s on a Tuesday or Thursday during a conference call and someone records it.
Our system is down. Not all of it, just the main program we use to do everything. It went down at 10 pm EST last night. It is now 8:25 am EST and it’s still not up with no ETA on when it will be back up. I keep trying to log in every fifteen minutes to see if anything’s happening as Swiss Miss (the night audit lady) was doing all night, but still no dice.
Right now it’s not so much of a big deal because I’m just dealing with checkouts and those are already in the bucket. What’s going to suck is if this thing doesn’t come back up by noon because we have no idea who the arrivals are going to be tonight and no way of getting that information. It’s going to be a royal grade-A prime cut clusterfuck if this system doesn’t get back online in the next four hours.
And to top it all off, I’m working with Panicky Coworker this afternoon, she who can’t do anything without me looking over her shoulder.
I may have to reconsider my stance on drinking this afternoon.