Nope, sorry, dude. Get back to work. whipcrack sound
Not a gripe, but the removal of a gripe:
The Troll got fired yesterday! The Troll would be the precious little snowflake who thought that rules (and mandatory meeting times and little courtesies like letting her bosses know when she was going to go out of town on the days she was scheduled to work) didn’t apply to her. Finally, after a year and half, she has discovered that yes, they do apply to her. There has been much muted rejoicing.
Wow Boss, I had no idea you were a 'Doper. How do you find the time?
Bri2k
Happy to hear that SpazCat! Rejoice away!
We’re getting ready to go through a system conversion at work, and it’s been a special kind of hell. Today I had to deal with the data import team leader, and wow is she a bitch. I got griped at all day because I didn’t know how the accounting program was set up. Now I’ll be the first to admit the program is a tad clunky, but it does work for what we need it for. However, I was not the one who installed the program eight years ago, and the guy who did is no longer at the company. He was also not good about sharing info, so no one knows how this program was set up. We just use it, and it works. I know, probably not the best idea, but when the guy quits and takes his secrets with him and the company is too cheap to get a new program, what do you do? After a few hours of listening to “Well this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen… why don’t you know X, Y, and Z??” I was so ready for a drink.
This system conversion is going to be continuing through the first week of September. Pray for me…
I feel your pain Dr. Girlfriend, in a roundabout kind of way.
We had a system conversion in October last year. In about January or February this year, I was involved in meetings with the software engineers who set up the new system, helping my team leader explain why the whole system was wrong for the job we do, and what we needed changed - which was pretty much everything.
The software engineers asked (as well they should) “Why weren’t we told this in the consulting stages?”
We didn’t know, because nobody had ever consulted us. Turns out the person from our area (who’s not part of our team and doesn’t know our job) who WAS consulted basically just sat back and went “Yeah, it looks alright” without actually consulting any of the people under him, or even investigating if the tasks and processes were even appropriate for anything.
Nearly a year later and we’re still waiting for fixes to come through and working on a half-assed approximation with no legitimate process guide in place because everything keeps changing.
I recently heard another consultant refer to that as “upside-down requirements design”. She said “they try to do top-to-bottom but end up with upside-down.” The rest of her commentary is not fit to print.
Unfortunately I was out of the department on a secondment when the consultation phase when through, or I would have buried a size 11 foot in this guy’s ass.
That’s pretty common.
I worked on many software designs, and discovered this pretty early. Basically, the user department assigns their least competent person to work with the design team. After all, they are so overworked they can’t spare any of the good people! But this useless guy – his being gone in design meetings won’t affect our productivity any.
Or they assign a manager, who tells you the way the work was done 5 years ago, when he was an actual worker. But that isn’t the way they do the work now.
So I learned early on to bypass the official channels, and get to some of the real live workers to ask about system designs. Find out where their break room is, and go there with samples of proposed reports or screens, and ask for comments. And note that you often have to sneak around to do this – both your management & theirs may try to prevent such direct worker-level contacts. (But once you do it, and they see that you are paying attention to their comments, the workers will be very willing to work with you, and keep it quiet. And even more so on the next project.)
Cover your goddamn stomach already!
I cannot believe how much I have come to hate you because I have to view that bulgy, pale fish belly all day. The rest of us have managed to dress ourselves like professional adults, which involves covering our guts. Why haven’t you? How hard is it to find a shirt that fits? You monogrammed your fucking sleeves, but you can’t bother to find something that fits you? Who the fuck has an ill-fitting, monogrammed Brooks Brothers shirt?
Never mind that. Seriously, the sight of you makes me ill. Every time I see you, a part of my decency dies. Isn’t this some kind of dress code violation? Why is this allowed? Are we all being had? Is this some social experiment to see how long before someone says something? Cover that shit up. Today.
I am rolling laughing! Haaaa!
ETA: Fish belly? Heeeeeee!
I feel your pain, MeanOldLady. My last assignment was working with two women who were nice enough people, but they both wore the hipster jeans while doing fairly physical labour (and being of a physique that wasn’t contained by the jeans) - I got treated to a view of their asscracks far more than I wanted (“none” was how much I actually wanted).
It wouldn’t bother me so much if the shirts weren’t monogrammed with her initials. Just… it just blows my mind.
Maybe she bought the shirts when she was smaller and never admitted to herself that she’s outgrown them?
One would assume, but I honestly think she doesn’t care. If you saw her, you’d know why I say that.
And I feel terrible for disliking her so much because she’s been nothing but nice to me, but Jesus H, handle that.
Somebody prepared something in the break room microwave today that smelled like fruit punch and pee. It made my office partner’s artificial maple instant oatmeal seem good by comparison.
Between pale white fish bellies and fruit punch & pee, there’s not much I can add.
At least we’re a day closer to the weekend.
Bri2k
When on Tuesday you escalate to my boss, and her boss, and his boss complaining that our department is responsible for all the considerable problems on your project do not be surprised when by Wednesday and everyday thereafter I provide daily updates as to progress and changes and the impact to the schedule.
When you make a change and I provide you with options on how to deal with the impact (1, you find resources to do this, 2, if my resources do it these x tasks will slip) whining that you don’t like either of them will not change the facts.
Also yelling at me, my vacation coverage and my boss will ensure that you when you complain today that I was mean to you no one will believe you. I’m the one with the sweet smile who gets things done and you’re the cranky asshole with unreasonable expectations. These are our roles, live with it asshole.
Oh good gravy.
I received an email from a coworker, stating she has opened a legal action against a client and suggested (since I also have the client on my caseload) that I do the same. She noted she’s already done XYZ, so I should be speedy and catch up.
What do I do? I rearrange my schedule so I can catch up with her. I’ve not only completed XYZ, but got to point 1 and 2. At this point, I just need to wait for the client to respond (or not) and turn over the final documents to the attorneys. I email her, informing her of the status.
“Wow! You’re speedy!” Now she has to catch up.
Today I get an email - she cannot complete points 1 and 2 until at least September 1st. Why? She would have to be in office. No shit, Sherlock. So do as I did, and haul your ass in.
Overall, I love this whole Remote Work Environment. I’m on my couch, in my pajamas, taking a break from work. I go into office once every other week, or more frequently if there is something that requires my in office presence. Like completing a referral as requested by a coworker.
Technically, there are no emergencies in our job. I understand that. But this whole “HURRY!” shit, followed by “Now you have to wait” crap pisses me off.
People who complain about how much work I’ve created for them should not ostentatiously chirp hello to me when they stroll in at 9.30 am and will be leaving at 4.
Especially when the work I created for them was by pulling several twelve hour shifts to wade through an exception report that no one had looked at in 5 years. I’m so glad I found all those phone numbers we weren’t billing customers for! Don’t bitch at me because now you actually have to add them to billing.
So my company has two main systems. One is stable, solid as a rock. The other is a touchy, glitchy piece of dung. Guess which one is now the only one that can be used for updating records? Right, you guessed it, the turd. Funny thing though, no one realized one field only holds 10 characters while it’s common for some data that goes there to be up to 17 characters long. Oh and if you try to make changes in two different pages for a record on the same day, guess what happens? Right one change goes down a black hole.
“Conflicting orders! The subs will launch!” - Dawn’s Early Light.
It sucks when your entire day is deja-vu of an HBO flick starring Darren McGavin and Rip Torn.
My guess is the guys that can’t speak english were in charge of this “enhancement”.
I need a beer. Tomorrow will be no better.
Bri2k