I always thought that modern laser printers (which is what modern copiers are), should be perfectly able to do holes. It’s what lasers do.
Printers and copiers should be programmable (via front panel selections or data included in the print file) not only to print, but to burn the holes in the paper. It would be trivial, then, to have a printer that could burn any desired pattern of holes in the paper, for standard three-ring binders, or Velobind holes, or various spiral binding hole patterns, or comb binding etc.
Wait. An industrial-sized office printer, filled with several hundred sheets of paper, should be outfitted with the ability to BURN multiple holes in those sheets of paper?
While I was on vacation we got a new bullshit duty that enhances nothing to anyone and only annoys us all. So of course nobody knows exactly what we’re supposed to do to fulfill this new requirement.
If I hadn’t already decided to start seriously looking for new employment earlier this week, this would have pushed me to it. Why the hell did I even come back from vacation?
Worked about four months of overtime- by my estimation, I worked an extra 160 hours over that time. Surprisingly, we were given comp time. I got two weeks.
Other people got three weeks, even a month. It appears to be based on seniority. That’s a pretty poor way to divy out the comp time, but whatever.
However, I’ve been back to work now for two weeks, some people are still on their comp time. As a result, I have nothing to do. Absolutely nothing. I spend the day surfing the web.
Seriously, guys, I could have just taken these last two weeks off instead.
The truly annoying thing is that we’ll be working overtime again next year- because this is an annual thing. Instead of giving us all of this time off, wouldn’t it be a lot more efficient to just schedule things correctly from the beginning? I’d much rather work a full year of regular hours than have to work overtime and then get an indeterminate amount of time off.
You have validated my claim that birthdays are for women and children. I don’t give a fuck about my birthday. It’s just another day, and I show up for work.
We get TOIL (Time Off In Lieu)(of pay) instead of overtime pay if we work more than or outside the hours we were hired for, and we have to use the TOIL time within a month of accruing it.
I’ve always been in customer facing jobs, so I’m pretty used to dealing with nasty people. Even in a professional, b2b environment, there’s always one. They still always make me wonder, though. For example in my current gig, there is a customer who is always instantly combative. She called me this morning to ask about something and when I started to explain she interrupted:
NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. (yes, almost yelling)
Then proceeded to try to clarify her question. She’s notorious in our company and apparently calls many of us and is the same way to everyone. We’ve developed an understanding. Oh, Angela called you? compassionate, knowing look
What I don’t understand is how these people are allowed by their bosses to continue being nasty like that. Pretty sure if I did that, my boss would hear about it and shortly I would be called to the carpet. Maybe Angela is so belligerent that her own boss is afraid of her?
We’re limited to the amount of OT we’re allowed to get, depending on the time of year.
Right now, for example, is our slow season, and it’s slower than previous years, presumably because everyone decided to leave town one last time before school begins. Hours are being cut left and right, so much so that some of us FT employees were asked if we wanted comp time – either vacation or holiday – for the hours we’re not working so we get the requisite 40 hours. It’s voluntary, but it’s a good way to get rid of extra PTO before the holidays.
I work with a brother and sister. He has a short fuse and overreacts over every last damn thing. She’s very nice and tries to calm him, which I swear is how he manages to keep his job. He’s around fifty and I once said to her, “I normally make no effort to know a woman’s age, but are you his serene big sister?”
“Yes.”
“Has he always been like this?”
“Yes, but don’t tell him. I love my brother.”
Fine, but he’s getting on my last nerve. Y’see, I am usually able to keep my trollish inclinations in check, but it’s so fucking easy to set him off, and he is so over-the-top, and Sis has been ill all week so I’ve had to bite my tongue continuously for four days, and one more day tomorrow. And despite me being on my best behavior, his temper got him called on the carpet because he called another nice lady a name. No real reason; it was that she didn’t remember saying something job-related, but insignificant, the exact way he remembers her saying it, and he kept escalating it.
He’s a grown-ass man and shouldn’t need his big sister to keep him out of scrapes. He has anger-management issues and I think he’s a bit mentally ill, but I dasn’t mention it because he might beat me up. Instead, I might need to kill him preemptively.
So you’ve got one more day to make your workplace a better place for everyone.
Can you get him to hit you? I’m pretty sure you could get him fired if he hit you.
Then other people wouldn’t be afraid to go to work.
Does Sis know other people get bullied and berated when she isn’t there? I think “enabler” get tossed around too loosely, but it certainly applies here.
I don’t know, since this is my first longterm exposure to them, but she’s had half a century to get a clue. She’s a few years older than him, so I suppose mothering him is second nature. Not as a good mother would do, but as a person with no real authority over him would, to minimize the waves he produces. IOW, “enabler” works. “I love my brother,” struck me then as something an enabler would say.
ETA: He’s not punching me! I have barely enough teeth to eat with as it is.
What really pisses me off is that there are only six of us on the team, and when the program succeeds it will grow to a hundred, filling a lot of empty seats and bringing back a few people from “furlough.” We will be mentoring squads as that happens, so we, as a team, need to work together to make it work. There’s no space for people who make others angry. I’m just a grunt in a foxhole, but I’m tempted to say something to the bosses, something subtle and non-committal. They aren’t stupid and should pick up what I mean. I don’t want him fired. I just didn’t fight the full ten years of the Quality Wars of the '90s for nothing, and know some ways to help him.
Well … why not? Is he really that critical to the success of the project, and so to peoples’ jobs? I understand that he might need his job, but so does Nice Lady and she shouldn’t to worry about being berated and bullied at work.
Okay, if you can’t get him to hit you, maybe you can get him to blow up in front of the bosses.
I wonder what would happen if everyone on the team started telling him to knock it off every time he threw a hissy fit?
It’s 5:10AM. My alarm won’t go off for an hour. I’ve been thinking (makes for early rising) the same thing about a team meeting. I’ve also been analyzing the new incentive structure, which almost argues against working on Fridays since many customers are closed or close early, reducing our weekly sales per hour and wiping out any gains made the previous four days. I’m back to not liking my job. With robot insurance what incentive there was is based on your standing in the group, not a fixed target.
I don’t know if there’s a limit to TOIL for us, but being a small charitable organisation, some members of staff have so much work to do just to keep on top of things that they just work overtime and never seem to take any TOIL, certainly not enough to cover all the extra hours they work. I, on the other hand, have so many days when I simply cannot come into work and have to do what I can from home, that if I do have to work a bit beyond my normal hours, like having a meeting go beyond my going-home time, I just apply it to the time that I wasn’t able to come in.
If I had to go in on a day when I don’t usually work at all, though, like for a forum or an awards ceremony or something, I would log and claim the TOIL for that. The forums are usually on my days off, though, so I just don’t go to them unless forced, and I managed to beg off the last awards ceremony and Christmas party due to the fact that they set off hella fibro flares. I’m just lucky that the current (interim) senior manager is so accommodating of my illness. I don’t know if her replacement (if she doesn’t manage to get the permanent position) will be as understanding. I’m holding onto this job with my fingernails, as no other likely prospects are on the horizon that I would be able to do consistently and that would support us both. Once Him Indoors is working again, perhaps I can take a lower-stress, higher-activity job, like an office mailman or tea lady or something. I’d look into delivering post for the Royal Mail if the weather here wasn’t so shite.
I’d look into delivering post for the Royal Mail if the weather here wasn’t so shite.
