Our server was updated on Friday. Not because it wasn’t working, but because of some warranty bullshit that requires it to be replaced every five years or so. Since then:
[ul][li]Our computers have started shutting down randomly, causing us to lose work[/li][li]We keep on getting error messages from our server when logging on (something about trust issues)[/li][li]Microsoft Opal - I mean, Outlook - keeps on asking for passwords which we’ve never previously had to give[/li][li]I keep getting emails bouce back from legitimate email addresses, including the one of our newest client[/li][li]I never know if I’m being sent an email, as none seem to come through except internal ones[/li][li]Our staff working from home can’t log on at all.[/li][/ul]
This seems to happen every time we upgrade - even changing to Microsoft Office 2007 left one PC out of action for over a week.
Introducing your coworker to one of your namesakes (of the non-placard waving variety) would be at least one count of cruelty to animals, sadly. Love the username, btw, it makes me think of a small crowd of porcupines bearing “otan no” and similar placards.
People who make automated systems send alert emails to everybody in the company should be forced to join the clean-up crews for Superfund sites and do any scrubbing necessary. With their tongues :mad:!
I’m gonna kill our IT dept. We’ve been having an ongoing technical problem that impacts our work, and it’s steadily getting worse and worse in the past months. We’ve brought it to their attention numerous times, and they’re researching the problem. Great, right? Not when the conversation goes like this:
Us: We’re having that problem again, the one that prevents us from doing X, Y, and also Z.
IT: Can you try it while doing A?
Us: Well, A has nothing to do with Y or Z, only X, so I don’t think it’ll… fine, okay. [time elapses] Yup. Same problem.
IT: OK. Well, what about B?
Us: B has nothing to do with X, Y, OR Z. It’s only related to JKLMNOP.
IT: Try it anyway.
Us. Okay. [time elapses] Same problem still!
IT: What about doing A?
Us: [grind forehead into keyboard]
Tomorrow they’re going to tell us that the problem is because we’re wearing a cardigan, and could we please try again after removing our sweaters?
Oh, it’s definitely illegal (asking people to “voluntarily” come in for team building exercises). But yeah, good luck in reporting it without consequences. Good luck in even raising the issue about it being illegal without consequences. Because there WILL be consequences, and the beatings will continue until morale improves.
That sort of thing drives me nuts, several times I managed to just fix the damn things myself. Now of course they fired the local IT guy and everything goes through head office in another country… Oh, but they appointed someone who has nothing to do with tech and who isn’t here half the time as the person to go to, AND they have a consultant who sits in the former IT person’s office and has no authorization for anything so if you ask them to do something it’s ‘I can’t do that, call head office’ but when you call you get asked why you didn’t go to the people here. Grrr.
God, all the leftover tension around here is killing me. Furtive whispering, grandboss fuming around, the goddamn motherfuckingfatherrapingstabmenow scentsy thingamahooky, the impending doom that is her birthday tomorrow. She’s told everyone she wants nothing, but knowing how little children are about birthdays, the cake is still on order and a card still went around to be signed with cheerful little messages of heartfelt fucking joy. (I did not contribute to the accompanying gift card. Fuck that bitch - I’m broke as shit, and if I had money to blow I’d use it to take the ferals we care for to the vet, not blow it helping you buy more useless junk.) We’re all trying to figure out the group lunch now: do we go? who’s going? what if my suitemate didn’t go - would that help or make things worse?
All that to say: I’ve been more or less fine till now. I had a nice little lunch break, came back (found a parking spot! *), climbed the three flights of stairs that are my nice little daily exercise, sat down at my desk … and started shaking so fucking hard that I had to just sit still with my hands folded for about five minutes. Could barely log in. God, I didn’t even realize how anxious I’ve been.
Mr. Horseshoe had knight-in-shining-armor timing: his lunch break had just ended and he called me to say “hi” before going back in to work. Hearing his voice helped enough that I’m able to physically type this out now, but I honestly don’t know how well I can focus on work. Have been starting with the most mindless, repetitive, aretardedthirdgradercoulddothisinhissleepwhythefuckdidIevenattendschool tasks.
Also, I had two peanut M&Ms left in the bag. That helped, too. (I’m a grazer and get tired of things quickly, so I nibble constantly but very low-volume. That 1.74 oz bag has been on my desk since Monday morning - I knew when I paid my 50c for it that it would last me all week. But sigh because I have all these snacks sitting around, people think I’m stuffing my face with 5K calories a day and all ask me how I stay so thin and blahblahblah.)
Side rant: what is UP with the parking around here recently? Did a whole shitton of people get hired all at once? Goddamit, HR, quit handing out triple the number of parking passes as spots. It’s a garage, and a tiny one at that: the laws of physics demand that it provides a finite amount of available space.
That might just do the trick (if you’re aiming for her to have a complete, total meltdown and get carried off on a stretcher and be in a mental institution for a couple of weeks). I say do it!
Do you have computers? Because all of that heat really isn’t good for computers. Anyway, as soon as you go without AC, you begin to learn how many people have really bad personal hygiene. :eek:
Really, the entire idea of picking “energy abatement program” days by randomly assigning them instead of just turning the AC off any day that the temperature is lower than a certain threshold is deeply fucking stupid.
-I understand the Suburban live truck is owned by the company, and is not personally mine;
-I understand when I broke my heel in May it would be taken from me (I get to drive it home every day) and would/might be returned when I am ambulatory;
-I understand people will be asked to jump into it at a moment’s notice to go run a live shot;
-I know it’s the oldest truck in the fleet, it’s cranky to use, it’s not ergonomicly set up, and in general a real pain to operate…
But when I got in it to drive it to Manasses to set up for the 150th anniversary of the civil war battle there, I did not expect:
Four armloads of trash all through the truck;
The brake release broken off;
The cupholder broken off;
Soda spilled all over $1500 worth of scanners;
Did someone actually try to steal my XM radio?
WTF strobes don’t work anymore?
Did I mention the trash included rotten food?
Seriously, this truck is my mobile office. I put on average close to a thousand miles a week on ,t, it carries everything I need to operate in the day, there are many days I never make it into the city. I clean it, take it for repairs, fix a lot myself, in general keep it running. The powers that be don’t want to blow another $200,000 on a new live truck so it’s my job to keep the 1999 Suburban running as best I can.
Hell, before I took it over 2 years ago no-one knew how to regularly run it as a live truck (it is that different from the rest.) It was basically a daily run car for whoever needed it, I got it to be a dependable live truck again (a little job security manuever on my part.)
Now, it’s back to being abused badly. It will take me weeks to get it up to speed again. It will cost the company $$$ to get it fixed.
Oh well, probably be some OT in it. But I am still looking at September before I am cleared to work. I hope it holds up that long.
Okay, seriously bitch - I feel for you if your kid’s sick and you can’t get him to daycare because they won’t take crook kids.
But for reals, the workplace is not a fucking creche. The first day he was in, it was cute when he said hi to everyone. Not my cup of tea, but whatever.
But we’re now on day 3. The office you were parking him in with his playstation is now occupied, which means he’s out here on the floor, running around, going up to people and bugging them at their workstations, being noisy (not screaming or anything, just talking at “Kid voice” levels, and wittering on about nothing) and generally just doing what a kid does when they’re in a boring place - fidgeting, fussing and getting bored.
You get four weeks paid annual leave, 18 days “personal” leave and because you’re PA to the Big Boss you get to build up and use flex leave whenever you want. So how’s about you fuck off home and take your walking disease-vector with you, so that the rest of us can do our work in peace?
I still can’t believe people do this. My kids have been to my office twice; both were in the evening when there was no one here because I forgot something and had to go back.
When your kid is sick, the parent stays home with them unless they are old enough to stay by themselves. Full stop.
Not to mention that she is bringing the kid germs that the daycare doesn’t want into her office where, chances are, they are wanted either.
Sierra Indigo, I feel for you and wholeheartedly approve of your rant. I’d be extrasuperduper pissed if I was in your position and subsequently came down with whatever SmallDiseaseVector has.
Thanks for the anonymous Internet stranger moral support, by the way, you guys. Grandboss is in today* and merrily thanked us for decorating her office for her birthday-that-she-supposedly-wants-us-to-ignore-but-we-all-know-better, and is generally a happy little clam. Chit-chatting with us about the fire sale at the local Border’s that’s about to close, asking us about some new flavor of coffee, etc. Found out end of day yesterday via the office gossip mill that she is, in fact, forreals off her meds and has been for several months now, so I assume things can only continue getting worse.
What’s a polite way to ask your superior’s superior to please kindly go back on your anti-psychotic medication regime?
the birthday group lunch is still officially cancelled, but … who knows?
Sierra, that’s insane. My personal feelings about kids aside, a workplace is not a place for kids, for so many different reasons.
You really do need to get out of there, purplehorseshoe. That situation has, “And in breaking news, a supervisor goes crazy and opens fire on staff…” written all over it.
I hate people who bring their kids in when the kids are sick. As if we want to catch your little germ vector’s sickness, as others have said!
But once we had a guy bring in his 3 YO, and after they had left we found that the kid had gone into another office, somehow got a hold of some scissors :eek: and cut a couple of locks off of someone’s decorative dolly they had in their office.
What. A. Jerk. How can you be supervising your little child so badly she gets a hold of scissors! What if something had happened?
(I’m a grazer and get tired of things quickly, so I nibble constantly but very low-volume. That 1.74 oz bag has been on my desk since Monday morning - I knew when I paid my 50c for it that it would last me all week. But sigh because I have all these snacks sitting around, people think I’m stuffing my face with 5K calories a day and all ask me how I stay so thin and blahblahblah.)