If my doctors (and dentists) are only five minutes late, that’s a friggin’ GOOD day.
I may just manage the biggest collections of neurotics and whiners and grudge carrying menopausal beyotches in history.
Today I tried to get some consensus happening in one department because I really don;t want to deny someone a week of vacation because Ms Seniority Complex took the Thursday and Friday off. But I pretty much have to. So who ends up wagging her finger and pontificating me. No, not the person stiffed for vacation, but Ms Seniority Complex.
I have a staff member who has 40 hours/two week postition freak out about being scheduled for 4 full shifts and two 5 hour shifts because it costs too much for babysitting and she doesnt have a babysitter just her mom and her sisters.
I have been the manager since September and really am getting more and more into supervising the clinic since February. People have mean petty grudges and I get things that happened 8 years ago brought up to me all the time about why they can’t work as a team.
The employer is great, the benefits are amazing there are opportunities for learning and getting skills. But people can’t get past things that happened years ago, move on and get the job done.
Grrrrrrrrr
I went and chopped down a tree when I got home tonight just so I didnt freak out at my family.
Ya know, when I’m trying to fix some busted code it’s really not the best time for us to have one of our conversations where you make obscure references to a movie from the 70’s.
I’m just sayin’, I probably wouldn’t catch the reference even if I was focused on your end of the conversation so I’m sure as hell not going to get it when I’m zoned in on trying to fix the problem so I can leave for home.
No, co-workers. I don’t want to go to lunch with you. Besides the fact that I’m broke as all get-out, you want to go to lunch at 11:30. I work 9-6. That means that less than two hours after I’ve arrived at my desk, as I’m nibbling the last corner of my breakfast Pop-Tart, you wanna go to lunch. Leaving me with a five-hour afternoon.
I’m not anti-social. I swears it! Just broke, and not hungry at (what seems to me to be) an ungodly hour for lunch.
Besides, you have shitty taste in Mexican food. That chain place you’re always going to? Shitty, shitty salsa. I gotta sit around listening to you making small talk, I want some decent fucking salsa.
checks clock Fine. Good. I’m going to lunch now. At a DECENT hour. Pbbbbtttthhh.
“Yeah, we ran short yesterday because so-and-so called off.”
“Why didn’t you call me? I told you I needed hours!”
“Because every single time in the past when I’ve tried to call you in your phone was either disconnected or you just didn’t answer. And my messages were unreturned. Why waste the time trying anymore?”
“If my phone is disconnected, call whats-her-name, we do live together ya know!”
“She never answers her phone or returns my calls either. Besides, I’m not jumping through hoops when trying to get ahold of you. Here’s some advice: your phone won’t get disconnected if you PAY THE BILL. Take the money you’re spending on beer and make your fucking payment. Also, if you won’t answer the phone because you’re sleeping off your nightly drunk then you’re not gonna get those available hours. Thank you.”
I didn’t really say that last part but I sure did feel like it.
Also, it’s amazing how you can’t pry their fucking cellphones out of their goddamned hands while they’re at work, but try to call them in (at their own behest) and they inevitably “didn’t see that you called.” But they sure don’t miss a single Facebook update while at work…
My team is swamped and a bit behind. Grandboss knows this. So why in the name of all that’s holy did our entire dept. have to spend over a half-hour on “team-building exercises” today? We did that thing where you stand in a circle and hold hands and then have to untangle. Seriously. I did that at summer camp when I was about nine, so why, as a grown-ass adult with an alarming number of emails in my inbox, do I hafta do it AGAIN?!?
Oh gawd, I hates those team building things with a burning rage. They are such a waste of time, everyone hates them and Management gets to think they are doing something positive.
My work rant of the day. I have a small tattoo on my inner arm. I never thought that a flag colored eagle would be offensive to anyone. I work in a warehouse, I rarely see a taxpayer. Today, on casual Friday, I wore a red T-shirt to work. (red shirts to support the troops, most of the county has bought into it and mine is a nifty USMC support one) Shredder guy called my boss to say that he thought it was inappropriate that I was showing my ink.
So now, we don’t get casual Friday work garb anymore. Shredder guy has pissed off the only other person who brings coffee in, because J loved to wear shorts on Friday, but he has a small tattoo on his calf. J now has his coffee locked in his desk and guess who will get to listen to SG whine about no coffee on Monday?
I suppose you can’t tell him it’s his own damn fault for being such a putz, and if he wants coffee he can buy his own because after 4 years he’s surely saved enough money from mooching off of everyone else’s?
Which reminds me: does HR know he’s a gambling addict? The government tends to frown on having employees with money problems of that nature.
He’s old and po. He was given this job through the “good old boy” network and I’m the only one who has to put up with him on a daily basis. J only works in the warehouse 2 days a week. Long and boring talk about scheduling here.
I haven’t talked to HR about SG yet, but its well known that SG is living in a camp trailor because of his bad money management skills.
I’m thinking that this snit happened because SG came to talk to me about someone’s sex life, started by telling me “I know you don’t want to know this, but this is something you need to know.”
Instead of my usual response “If you think its something I don’t want to know, that means I don’t want to know it” and walking away, I sat at my computer and pulled up my notebook.
I didn’t send his monolog to HR, I need more documantion to keep it from a “He said, She said” thing, but I did send it to the person in question. Her outraged responses are in the same folder as well.
I think her outrage at him was what caused him to complain to my boss about my short sleeves. SG won’t stop talking and I will continue documenting everything.
Very minor complaint that I must still share:
Come on, co-workers. I know you don’t feel cold. In fact, I know that often you feel hot. But I don’t go into your offices telling you how cold it is and laughing because you’re in short-sleeves, with a fan blowing on you, and saying how ridiculous you are.
So I would appreciate you not stopping by my office door to laugh at the fact that I’m wearing gloves and have a blanket draped over my shoulders. Yes, I know it was funny those first few months I was wearing the blanket. But now your commentary about how it’s “not that cold” isn’t funny. The thing is, it is horribly cold TO ME. And it will only get worse when the summer kicks in and they turn the air up a notch. And I will continue to wear my gloves, jacket, and blanket into the hot summer. The building apparently is accomodating all the “hot” people, so I have to make my own adjustments since my blood runs so cold. I just ask that you stop commenting on it ALL THE DAMN TIME.
I realize I’m in the minority about the temperature of the building, but there are a couple of other slightly-built women on the floor who are also constantly shivering. So I’m not the only one.
I know it’s minor, but your laughter and commentary (sometimes from the same individual, multiple times a day) is actually disruptive. Because I have to feign humor in the situation and be all laughy and smiley when I really want to be left alone. I keep the door closed most times to keep ya’ll out and the warm air in, but then I get accused of being anti-social. So I can’t win. Just let me be cold in peace, please.
That’s me, too – try wearing a sweater, it’s a lot less funny.
Our office is ice-cold until early afternoon when it gets less cold. So I try to wear a couple of layers (I’ll wear thin silk undershirt, a long-sleeve T-shirt, and a heavy dress shirt (or even a flannel shirt). And keep a sweater in my top file drawer.
I’m always running to the bathroom to take off or add a layer. And run hot water on my wrists if it’s really cold.
I’ll give you the same advise I gave the guy with “douchebag neighbors” in another thread.
Digital Voice Recorder.
Unless they’re prohibited in some way in your location or where you work of course.
Don’t accommodate him in any way, and do document every one of his screwups. Document when you have to fix something he did, and document when he steals stuff from you (I know he steals food, does he steal anything else?), and document when HE violates the dress code. If you can catch him actually breaking the law, document that. Hell, document when he comes in ten minutes late or leaves five minutes early.
Whoever hired him should have to work with him.
[Idle, unfounded speculation] Ever wonder if it takes him so long to do the shredding because he’s reading the documents first? Might not be the old boy network so much as having a body or two to dig up if needed. [/ idle, unfounded speculation]
Well, SG got this job before shredding, from what I can recall. But someone might very well owe him a favor, or he knew something before he got this job.
I am so impressed that the owner of our company manages to be so hands-off we often have no clue what he wants us to do with a given project, while at the same time being an annoying as fuck micro-manager.
This made me chuckle out loud - that’s an impressive set of skills (and, unfortunately, I know exactly what you’re talking about). 
To the QA department: I realize that your job is tedious, and it must suck a lot. I’ve done it for like an hour and during that time I wanted to stab myself in the eye with a pen just to see some color in the world.
When you find out that you are missing information necessary to bill a claim, I don’t mind that you contact me to try and obtain that information. But maybe someone has thought of compiling a database, or even a simple spreadsheet, whereby you can place all of this information so you do not ask me for the same patient’s employer month after month after month after month after monthaftermonthaftermonthaftermonthaftermonth…you get the point. Because I start to think that you are retarded, having already asked me for this, and knowing that I do not possess the power to change the myriad of EMRs out there to spit this information out to you on command, I continue to think that you are retarded for asking. And the offices start to think I am retarded for asking them, “didn’t I just give this to you?” and I have to explain that our QA department is made up of monkeys with highlighters and they still don’t understand why you have to keep asking. I don’t either.
I have even suggested such a solution, saying that it would save everybody time and money, and time, and energy, and time, and the ever dwindling level of patience I have. But apparently switching from a completely manual way of doing billing to a way which will save us all from having to answer the same basic questions every month is not good. And change is scary. And you are annoying.
One of my last jobs was with a crazy control freak - I created a spreadsheet to help me code and enter credit card statements for expense re-imbursement (like you say, it was the same codes over and over - all I would have to do was plug in the amounts from this month’s statement and let Excel do the work), but yes, change is scary and bad and saving time (and making fewer errors) is, apparently, not the goal. The goal, as far as I can tell, is stroking people’s egos.
So yesterday at work we had a diversity training workshop yesterday and one part really stuck with me. We were asked to divide into those with kids and those without. There were two people with kids at home, one with adult children, and one pregnant. Eleven were childless. Mostly by choice. It was mentioned that those with kids were often seen as a liability and my immediate boss had said that those with kids had more balance in our lives. That we have to leave because we have to pick up our kids, stuff like that. If something happens after-hours than it’s those without kids that have to pick up the slack.
To that I have to say bullshit.
I have worked for this company for almost 6 years and have never taken vacation time off. I have taken maybe 5 sick days off total.
I currently have over 50 hours of banked overtime that I need to use by the end of June. Most of these were accumulated since January. And I have been regularly taking time off to keep my banked hours down. If I hadn’t been doing that the number would be closer to 80. This is in line with other staff with no kids. I started back to work after my Mat. leave in August. Since then I have worked every STAT holiday except Christmas and New Years, and no one in the office worked those. I regularly work evenings and weekends (thus for all the overtime) and yes, sometime I do need to leave at 5:00 to pick up my kid. But I also arrive at work a good 20 minutes before my boss. So I figure it balances out.
Yes, there were times when I had to miss work for kid issues, but all of that time was taken from my banked hours and owed to me anyways. What is the difference between me taking a week off because daycare was closed due to measles, and my boss taking a week off to go to Mexico? We both earned that time; I just chose to use it for family reasons.
I have worked my butt off to not be seen as a liability. I have done my hours, pulled my weight, but it’s still not enough.
Fuck right off.