Workplace griping, anyone?

The BBQ Pit
8582

I’m one of those people who can be too literal, but I do have a notion of “sometimes things get inflated, or oversimplified”. A couple of my current customers are just very-tall dwarves: the whole idea that something such as “every piece of data will go into the Shiny New System” might be a slight exaggeration, and that this is in fact ok so long as we all understand it should not be taken literally, offends them to the very marrow of their soul (assuming, of course, that souls have marrows - this is a concept they would find offensive unless provided with proof that souls do, indeed, have marrows).

Note that the person who wrote in a document “every piece of data will go into the Shiny New System” is their boss, and has been their boss for several years, and these guys report directly to him; he really should have known better. Two have finally accepted that “Boss was simplifying things a bit too much”; the third one keeps bringing it up. In every. Single. Meeting…

8583

Yes. Sorry.

8584

Good luck, Spazcat! :frowning: Don’t forget to have a big glass of water after your drinkin’ time.

8585

The system finally came back online at noon. By 2 p.m. Big Boss had finally gotten through the final roadblock and had completed the audit. By 3 p.m. we had everyone checked out and the people who had drifted in between then and noon checked in. I had also managed to get the cash balanced before I left. fistpump

Panicky Coworker hadn’t shown up by the time I left. Her car wouldn’t start. :rolleyes:

8586

Does your smilie have anything to do with a missing distributor cap?
:dubious:

8587

Things that annoy me at work:

My supervisor will send me an email asking me to do something. When I start to work on it (usually right after I get the email), I will find out that she has already done it but didn’t let me know it was already done. :mad: I just love wasting on things like this when I have a to-do list a mile long. Thanks!

8588

Get in the habit of sending her an email asking when she wants it.

8589

I’ve had far less frustrating days at work, and the really annoying thing is that, for the most part, there’s no person to be angry at. It’s just the luck of the draw.

I think I mentioned, a few pages ago, that the company I work for had been purchased. They are now moving our laptops to the new domain, and for some reason this involved taking it away from us for at least two hours. (I’m sure there’s a good reason for it, but I don’t speak network very well.)

I scheduled my migration for their first available slot this morning, because I knew I had a full day on my plate. The migration is supposed to take about 2 hours. I took the laptop in at 9. By 11:30, when I went to lunch, I hadn’t been called to get the laptop.

“Hmmm,” sez I.

So after lunch I swing by the room, and my laptop is ready. Yay!

I take it upstairs, plug it in and …

it completely fails to boot to the OS. I don’t even get a BSOD, I keep getting a system needs repair message (I forget the exact wording). Help says that this sort of thing sometimes happens when you change domains and to try canceling, which the system would not allow. Then they suggested I power cycle it with about a 5-second pause. I wait about 15, for good measure, and power-up.

Still wants to repair the system. A couple more power cycles and no changes, I have Help put in a ticket and take it back down to the migration room, since I know all the onsite people are there and may not see a ticket any time soon.

We do various things for about an hour or so, managing to get into the OS (finally) and then trying to run a system scan, which won’t because we have a system REPAIR in progress. Oy.

Finally, they roll the system back to last known good, confirm that the migration appeared to have taken (this is when I find out that the software that is supposed to back up the files every day has not done so since mid-September, and the original migration took so long because the tech was making sure that was done first, yay! smart techs, boo! bloody software) and they send me off again.

I get back to my desk, plug everything in, and start trying to log in to the things I need access to.

Uh, oh. The computer is NOT seeing any networks. At all. Not even when the cable is plugged directly into the laptop instead of the docking station.

Back I go to the migration room (after putting in another ticket). This time it’s about half an hour, and the diagnosis is that some of the drivers got hosed during the migration or reboots, and the fastest fix at this point it to reimage it. Meantime, they can give me a loaner, find an equivalent laptop and set it up, and this one will be available for yanking things off of if the file backup wasn’t as good as we hoped.

I finally started working on something at about 3:30. That needed to be out today. Only to realize that my boss, who has to approve the document before it goes out, hasn’t because he was supposed to go over some things today but he is, apparently, TRAVELING today which no one was aware of …

So I send an email asking about it, and he suggests our customer service engineer (a very bright guy) look things over. Except he’s gone home for the day already and he generally doesn’t log in from home at night because small childers and hey, there’s a life outside of work, you know? I decide to take the loaner home so I can check in, just in case … and realize before leaving the building that since our company now uses two-factor authorization and the loaner isn’t set up for VPNing (or at least not for the 2-factor which requires a small application to run on the desktop and it’s only good for one piece of equipment so putting it on a loaner is just not going to happen because it’s already set up on the original ) there’s no point to that.

I got home about 8 p.m. <sigh>

Here’s hoping tomorrow is a considerably less frustrating and a lot more productive.

8590

Today is the Big Biannual Corporate Inspection Day. According to the schedule I was supposed to have backup. According to reality I am up here all by myself. The schedule was changed so that my backup was supposed to come in from 1-3 this afternoon and 6 hours later in the week. She just breezed in and asked if she could change her 6 hour day to an 8 hour day, which was approved, and then breezed out.

The reason that I have no backup today? She volunteered at a charity event today.

The fuck kind of an excuse is that? This is the Big Biannual Corporate Inspection Day. You guys knew on Saturday that the inspection was today. The schedule was made up on Sunday and has been posted ever since then. If chickadee wanted to work the charity event, she should have requested off instead of begging off the day before (yesterday). I could really use some backup today since Big Boss is squiring the inspector around and the useless AGM is here in his place.

And you, other AGM, why the fuck did you approve her time off request? We need two people here. It may be quiet now, but it wasn’t this morning and I sure as hell could have used some help this morning. I’m getting awfully sick and tired of being the only person who constantly works without backup.

And having her come in on Tuesday instead? Tuesday is notoriously slow. Now I’ll have to listen to her whining for eight hours about not having anything to do.

8591

If you move the location of something, tell the people who need to know.

(In fairness, the location may have been moved more than a week ago, and the person who knew may not have realized that I didn’t know. But a sucky job was made suckier by me not finding the stuff I needed at the beginning of the shift).

8592

Yay, my company finally sent me a check for my expense report that was approved October 14th. Only it’s not my actual check…that’s still “hung in the system” (actual status!). This is a replacement check delivered to me via the payment advance system. When the actual check ever clears the system, they’re going to try to void it; otherwise, I get to deposit it and write a check to the company.

8593

Couldn’t you write “void” on the check and send it back, or give it to accounting with explanation? Seems easier.

8594

I’m not entirely clear on why it happened, but I have been told that employees who have done this in the past have found their paychecks docked.

8595

What, are they going to have someone hand it to you personally? If they can do that, I don’t see why they can’t void it themselves.

And if they mail it to you (unless it’s with return signature), there’s no way they can prove that you actually received it.

8596

I freely admit that I have a pretty sweet deal most of the time but the reality is that I’ve accepted a lower salary in order to keep it. I work from home at least 4 days a week and many times I’m actually only in the office 1-2 days a month.

This month however is a nightmare. A vendor has completely screwed up my project and as a result of several escalations they’ve sent a person to us so we can make sure they’re working all the time. Unfortunately that means I have to be there to make sure they’re working all the time.

If this goes on much longer I might get used to commuting again and say fuck it and start looking for a job that pays what I’ve managed to convince people I’m worth.

8597

So bring the vendor’s rep to your house and supervise him from there.

:smiley:

8598

I approve of this idea and would like to subscribe to your newsletter however he comes with baggage. The tech dude comes complete with a vendor PM and my internal team includes an app admin, linux admin and DBA. They are also stuck in the room with us which is why I really don’t see why I am needed to supervise. Luckily I snagged a back to the wall seat today so I can supervise while slacking off.

On the non lucky side some moron on my other project booked a 5:45 webex to troubleshoot an issue with yet another vendors stupid newly released software. I’ve had my fill of bleeding edge today.

8599

Word. FUCKING Microsoft WORD.

8600

Is there any chance that you could supervise via a nannycam? My son was showing me his last week. It can see in the dark and transmit to i-devices.

8601

Holy crap. I’m sitting next to an office with a child protection worker arguing with a client. If I didn’t feel miserable already, I’d throw up at what I’m hearing.