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Dear SA, I got my first raise today (like 3% but I'll take what I can get) and even though we missed our sales AND profit goal for the 2nd half of the fiscal year, they still gave a bonus. It is a good week.
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Apr 9, 2014 17:57
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My departments green idea got shoot down for like the 10th time in favor of a stupid idea that may in fact be impossible. Rather then idea of simply printing less (we burn through about 10 skids of paper a month) they want us to source 100% recycled paper at the same price we pay now. This is despite the fact that between 60 to 90% of the paper we create is thrown out because we store everything on computers now.
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Apr 9, 2014 18:41
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sbaldrick posted:My departments green idea got shoot down for like the 10th time in favor of a stupid idea that may in fact be impossible. Rather then idea of simply printing less (we burn through about 10 skids of paper a month) they want us to source 100% recycled paper at the same price we pay now. This is despite the fact that between 60 to 90% of the paper we create is thrown out because we store everything on computers now. The first office where I worked, we made, at minimum, two hard copies of every letter that was sent out and every document that was produced. One for the file, and one "reading copy" for the document's creator. That's two copies before copies for other people were considered. We also, of course, kept everything electronically. This was an office of my state's environmental protection department.
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Apr 9, 2014 19:02
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My main contact at one of our customer companies quit & got replaced by someone who's never worked in our industry. It is very, very clear they have no idea what they are doing, what key terms mean (not buzzwords, these are industry standard terms), or what their contract terms are with us. In the last four weeks, their fuckups have cost over $100,000.00.
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Apr 9, 2014 19:25
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I have to admit, I'm starting to get a little tired of my boss bitching at me for doing precisely what she told me to do. 
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Apr 9, 2014 23:08
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Taliesyn posted:I have to admit, I'm starting to get a little tired of my boss bitching at me for doing precisely what she told me to do. Dear god this is what drives me to drink, the last two weeks for me have been answering the question "well why on earth did you do that?" With "because you told me to design the experiment this way, even when I asked to do it in a better way.". And my boss has said "I said that?" Even when I have shown him god drat emails instructing me to do the experiment in the half-brained manner he tells me.
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Apr 10, 2014 01:26
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Taliesyn posted:I have to admit, I'm starting to get a little tired of my boss bitching at me for doing precisely what she told me to do. My coworker recently had a moment like this. My response was to point to this strip I have hanging above my desk - you really only need the top half for the full effect. 
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Apr 10, 2014 02:35
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So, end of the second week of my employer's spring campaign. We're not getting the numbers we expected so the boss had a meeting for us contract employees. Our office is having to shed contract employees. Four people in my department got the boot today, possibly more tomorrow. Some may have to go part time. It's making my prospects of going permanent full time a bit dim. I really don't want to go back to retail having taken this long to get out of it, and I feel like the boss has put us all under the Sword of Damocles.
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Apr 11, 2014 02:02
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This week we had some senior management from offshore over here at the client onsite. The amount of stupid things I did was low, people here were thankful for that but I am done completely now. On Monday, the VP that came over had chats with all people here, one on one. During my turn I tried explaining that I do my job best if given a goal and tools to reach that goal, a place to go for guidance when lost on what to do next and some other pointers. Seeing they were here to learn it made sense to me. Well, Thursday comes around and there were some talks with the client about whatever was not going well and what was going fine. This was reason enough to call everyone in a room to tell us what we have been doing wrong and how to act in each instance. The low amounts of shits I still had to give were expended right there and then. Why bother anymore? So let's see how long I can go on while doing a great job for the client but ignore everything else. Oh, I did not have a manager for about 6 months which was one of my complaints. So no some guy got assigned to take this role, the same guy who delegated this to someone else in the first place but after this someone else left was unwilling to take it up himself. Yes, I am difficult to manage, I know this. YF19pilot posted:I feel like the boss has put us all under the Sword of Damocles.
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Apr 11, 2014 09:36
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I was supposed to go to a training yesterday and today, but the attendance was too low so they set up a remote learning classroom. I was fine with this because it meant I could stay home to do the labs and avoid the commute. There is only one other student besides myself, and he keeps forgetting to turn off his microphone (thankfully all our webcams are off). He must be wearing a wireless headset because I heard his entire meal and bathroom break during lunch. I kept muting him, but he'd unmute himself to ask a question about the lab we were supposed to work on while eating. The kicker is, and I might be jumping to a very wrong conclusion, but every half hour or 45 minutes, I hear what I swear is the sound of a bong hit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENsDyVqeuxs I tried to make myself believe he was slurping a smoothie or something, but one time he started coughing right after. The instructor did not say a word.
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Apr 11, 2014 13:22
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Keetron posted:This is a common feeling, I understood from the thread. Stop caring and solve the problem when it arrives as it will not get better? Yeah, I'm gonna start ramping up my job search again. I think I'd feel better if I was a permanent employee and not a contract. But at least now I can build things up on my resume towards this career path. The Aphasian posted:I was supposed to go to a training yesterday and today, but the attendance was too low so they set up a remote learning classroom. I was fine with this because it meant I could stay home to do the labs and avoid the commute. There is only one other student besides myself, and he keeps forgetting to turn off his microphone (thankfully all our webcams are off). He must be wearing a wireless headset because I heard his entire meal and bathroom break during lunch. I kept muting him, but he'd unmute himself to ask a question about the lab we were supposed to work on while eating. Maybe vaping/e-cig? Half of my smoking coworkers use them and they sound like an inhaler or something. What's worse is they tend to use them in the lunch room, which I don't care about smoke too much, but the place smells of nicotine sometimes.
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Apr 12, 2014 02:26
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And now, for my next trick, watch as I make these OSHA and internal policy violations... Disappear! Corporate is embarking on a wave of policy updates and clarifications in the wake of a recent merger, and since no one else at our branch apparently cares ("let em TRY and fire me! I ain't doin that bullshit") they passed a bunch of the research on covering our asses to yours truly. Turns out we are REALLY out of date on documented training for some of our equipment, which means we are not to even touch it until remedied. My superior strongly suggests I not disclose this fact as we rush to get it fixed, since we use it daily and shutting down operations for a week or more goes beyond rocking the boat. If there was a real safety risk instead of just paperwork I would NOT play ball, but I'm still very unhappy about the professional liability that burying this probably drops me in.
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Apr 12, 2014 22:25
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Yeah, that sounds like you'll get thrown onto your sword if somebody gets hurt and they sue. I assume there's no order from your supervisor in writing, right?
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Apr 12, 2014 23:14
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sbaldrick posted:My departments green idea got shoot down for like the 10th time in favor of a stupid idea that may in fact be impossible. Rather then idea of simply printing less (we burn through about 10 skids of paper a month) they want us to source 100% recycled paper at the same price we pay now. This is despite the fact that between 60 to 90% of the paper we create is thrown out because we store everything on computers now. If you ever manage to swing the conversation back around to saving paper, this generally gets a lot of traction from both IT and pointy-haired folk - https://www.papercut.com There's an ROI calculator and everything.
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Apr 13, 2014 04:20
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A management E-Mail went out stating to follow all SOPs to the letter or else corrective action will be taken. A second management E-Mail went out saying to no longer do a thing that every single SOP in the department says to do. Not sure how to bring this up to management without looking like I'm being confrontational. Management is...not very happy after our universally negative employee surveys came in. Personally I'd ignore E-Mail #2 if it wasn't for my PIA coworkers who would bitch me out.
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Apr 13, 2014 13:03
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Oh man, I heard a story today and I would love to be a fly on the wall for the meetings that will inevitably happen as a result. My company has taken to hiring lots of temps, as well as temps to assist those temps. So what you end up having is a hierarchy of temps working for temps and this works just as well as you would expect. One of the new temp temps up and quit the other day after about a week on the job because the temp that was in charge of him (herein known as Alphatemp) told him that he could absolutely not take a lunch or any breaks. If he wanted to eat, he had to bring food with him and leave it in the fridge in the back of the room. This is despite working 10.5 hour days and having an unpaid 30 minute lunch factored into that 10.5 hour shift. The special project this guy was assigned on was to basically sit next to a phone and assist people as they dial in to a conference call throughout the day. It's boring and there's a ton of down time but someone still has to be on the line to assist. There's no reason why Alphatemp couldn't take over the call for a half hour other than being too lazy (it used to be his job but he whined that it was too much work in addition to his regular responsibilities despite all the time I see him on Facebook and watching youtube*. He could spare 30 minutes.) The temp quit by writing a nasty letter and leaving it Alphatemp's boss' desk. It was too bad, he was really good for a temp. There were two guys assigned to this project, and I asked the other guy if Alphatemp told the same thing and he said yes, so I gave him special permission to tell Alphatemp to go gently caress himself. Turns out he already did in a much more polite manner. *I watch tons of youtube and facebook on the clock too but I don't make believe I'm busy all the time  (Yes Alphatemp loves to take his own lunch break and disappear for 60 minutes for a 30 minute break.)
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Apr 13, 2014 23:54
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Renegret posted:The special project this guy was assigned on was to basically sit next to a phone and assist people as they dial in to a conference call throughout the day. Do you seriously pay somebody to answer a phone and forward the caller to conference calls?
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Apr 14, 2014 00:04
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Kreeblah posted:Do you seriously pay somebody to answer a phone and forward the caller to conference calls? Maybe I phrased that poorly. The guy's job was to manage the conference call and assist people himself. The guys calling in are field techs making sure that the device they just installed is actually working properly before they leave the site (It's a project to replace tens of thousands of devices that are hung up on utility poles). They tried setting up a dedicated phone line for them to call, but in the likely event a tech tried calling the line while another tech was on the phone, he'd just get a busy signal and they'd get pissed. Try telling a contractor who gets paid by the job to just wait and keep trying, I don't recommend it. The solution was opening up a conference call that's left up perpetually, the techs dial in when they're done, say hello, and wait their turn. When they're all done with getting what they need, they hang up and dial in again when they're done with the next install. e: The job is still ridiculously easy. Get the MAC of the device, ping it, make sure it's pingable and reporting correctly on our tools, send the tech on his merry way. It's only necessary because contractors are scum and were leaving jobs half done. Alphatemp could do the whole thing himself, he just doesn't want to. Renegret fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 00:19
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Call Recently-quit-temp and ask him back on the premises you fire Alphatemp. If he agrees, fire Alphatemp. If he disagrees, still fire Alphatemp but only after he trained his replacement temp you hired to do his job.
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Apr 14, 2014 08:10
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Keetron posted:Call Recently-quit-temp and ask him back on the premises you fire Alphatemp. If he agrees, fire Alphatemp. If he disagrees, still fire Alphatemp but only after he trained his replacement temp you hired to do his job. Yeah, you know just as well as I do that won't happen. At best Alphatemp will get a slap on the wrist and they'll just find a new temp to replace the other guy. I hate to say it but Alphatemp is really good at his job and the company is milking him for all he's worth. He's really good at what he does and he has relevant experience. It'll be difficult to find a replacement with the same experience willing to take a temp's pay. Plus he's buddies with his manager so he'll never get fired. This is all happening in a separate department, but we share a room. I get to sit back and watch the fireworks, and enjoy office drama that doesn't involve me for once.
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Apr 14, 2014 11:50
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Renegret posted:I hate to say it but Alphatemp is really good at his job and the company is milking him for all he's worth. He's really good at what he does and he has relevant experience. It'll be difficult to find a replacement with the same experience willing to take a temp's pay. Plus he's buddies with his manager so he'll never get fired. There's a book called the "No rear end in a top hat Rule" which explains why this is a terrible idea. In a nutshell, he's dragging down the work of everyone around him and if he gets the boot (especially if it's known he's getting the boot for being an rear end in a top hat) then odds are the section as a whole will improve past what he is/was able to do on his assholish lonesome. In more personal news, the director of my department doesn't know how we arrive at our decisions. He has had our operational manual for over two years now, but in a meeting on Friday, we had to spend fifty minutes (almost the entire time) walking him through the process. So now we have another meeting scheduled to actually talk about the things that last meeting was supposed to be about before the "how to" derail. Hooray. Edit: I'm not expecting him to know all the details, that would be nuts. But he literally only knew the end result. And he's trying to draft policy changes about the end result.
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Apr 14, 2014 12:47
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ItalicSquirrels posted:There's a book called the "No rear end in a top hat Rule" which explains why this is a terrible idea. In a nutshell, he's dragging down the work of everyone around him and if he gets the boot (especially if it's known he's getting the boot for being an rear end in a top hat) then odds are the section as a whole will improve past what he is/was able to do on his assholish lonesome. If management did things that made sense all the time then this thread wouldn't exist though. Something happened on Friday when I was off that left a manager from another department basically storming my manager's office and screaming at him until he was blue in the face. If my management had any backbone they would've told him to gently caress off and come back when he's ready to speak like a normal human being. Instead they just took it, and now I have to deal with a bunch of angry management because they don't know how to stand up for themselves, and the poo poo trickles downhill.
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Apr 14, 2014 13:04
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ItalicSquirrels posted:There's a book called the "No rear end in a top hat Rule" which explains why this is a terrible idea. In a nutshell, he's dragging down the work of everyone around him and if he gets the boot (especially if it's known he's getting the boot for being an rear end in a top hat) then odds are the section as a whole will improve past what he is/was able to do on his assholish lonesome.
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Apr 14, 2014 13:29
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Halloween Jack posted:Only in the "science of management" could someone spin an entire book around the principle of not hiring people who throw childish tantrums. It's actually a really good book that gets into the costs of keeping assholes on board. The problem Renergent described is pretty common where everyone will acknowledge that someone is an absolute monster to work with, "but they're so good we'll never be able to replace them!" The "No rear end in a top hat Rule" goes into defining the costs that keeping such an employee brings. Keeping an rear end in a top hat around because they're a top performer is one of those situations where everybody knows what's going on but management will ignore because the costs are so hard to define vs. their performance. It's a book I enjoyed reading and even passed on to a couple of coworkers and my boss.
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Apr 14, 2014 13:41
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There are definitely some good things in management books, but I've never read one that didn't pad its pagecount out to two or three times what was necessary to convey its message. That's really bad because it results in a writing style that comes across as tedious and really condescending, because the authors belabor each point with multiple examples which they explain at an elementary-school reading level. But at least a book called the "No rear end in a top hat Rule" probably doesn't contain any parables involving cartoon mice and gnomes.
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Apr 14, 2014 13:50
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Halloween Jack posted:There are definitely some good things in management books, but I've never read one that didn't pad its pagecount out to two or three times what was necessary to convey its message. That's really bad because it results in a writing style that comes across as tedious and really condescending, because the authors belabor each point with multiple examples which they explain at an elementary-school reading level. Actually there are, but the gnomes are totally dicks to the mice.
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Apr 14, 2014 14:00
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Halloween Jack posted:Only in the "science of management" could someone spin an entire book around the principle of not hiring people who throw childish tantrums. It's actually more than throwing tantrums, it's bosses who condescend, coworkers who steal ideas, etc. There's literally a chapter on tabulating the costs of this person, too. Like if their boss has to take five hours a year out of their schedule for counseling this rear end in a top hat, you go 5*$30 to get part of the cost. Then you factor in HR's dealing with the complaints, dealing with the rear end in a top hat, and dealing with the boss. Then you factor in lost customers/clients/coworkers and the cost of replacing them. Let's say you come up with $5,000. You can then take that number to management and say, "This rear end in a top hat is costing us $5000 a year and I can prove it." I definitely recommend it, if only because it helped me realize that, no, that person almost certainly isn't "too good to let go".
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Apr 14, 2014 14:00
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ItalicSquirrels posted:You can then take that number to management and say, "This rear end in a top hat is costing us $5000 a year and I can prove it." Books don't seem so smart, now do they?
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Apr 14, 2014 15:42
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At my previous job, there was a guy that everyone, including the owners, hated working with. The company has an office and a retail store in this town, and this guy works at the retail store even though it would make much more sense to put him in the office. But the owners don't want him there, and all the other office staff would probably quit if he was moved there. But he's soooooooo good at his job! Except when he isn't, like when he doesn't let other stores order stuff that they know they can sell (or even have special orders for) or forces them to stock product that never sells.
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Apr 14, 2014 16:34
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It's circular reasoning. "why are they still here they're a complete pain to work with." --> "they must be good at their job to still be here if they're that much of an rear end in a top hat." --> "they are good at their job, but it to work with them though." Whether or not they are actually good at what they do, it's easy to think that they prob are good at it just for the fact they're there and being an rear end about it. It's easier to think this if you're not actually regularly observing their work, of course. It's not 100% this simple, but the gist of it.
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Apr 14, 2014 17:11
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Cheesus posted:What is the counter to management's response of "No, that's not true." followed by their internal monologue/justification of "I hired AlphaTemp to meet my quarterly goal; by firing him to save the company $5000 in the long term, I'd miss that goal and my $500 bonus now."? Care to tone that down a notch buddy? I didn't make you miss a quarterly goal, did I? The counter is that management has said the person is worth it. That's the purpose of the exercise. You write down what the person has/does cost the company and present it to those who care about those things. If they say the person is worth it, then you have reached the end of the exercise. Go back to start and track again. Eventually they will end up costing the company more money. Then you go say, "This person is costing the company $10,000." Repeat as needed. Eventually the company will not want to support the cost of the rear end in a top hat and will fire them.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:48
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ItalicSquirrels posted:Eventually the company will not want to support the cost of the rear end in a top hat and will fire them. Or they'll fire the rear end in a top hat who keeps complaining about The Best Temp Ever What Keeps The Others In Line And Tells It Like It Is And Who Takes A Lunch Break On My Watch Anyway?
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Apr 14, 2014 18:57
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docbeard posted:Or they'll fire the rear end in a top hat who keeps complaining about The Best Temp Ever What Keeps The Others In Line And Tells It Like It Is And Who Takes A Lunch Break On My Watch Anyway? Funny enough, the book also has advice about working in places like that. Don't join. If already there, get out as soon as you can.
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Apr 14, 2014 19:03
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If you think management is interpreting reality incorrectly, you can either jump ship or profit. Your call.
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Apr 14, 2014 19:13
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I had that book about assholes in the workplace. Then I lent it to a coworker and never saw it again. That rear end in a top hat!No Wave posted:If you think management is interpreting reality incorrectly, you can either jump ship or profit. Your call. Management does not interpret reality, management defines reality. But your advice still stands on whether to jump ship or take advantage. Probably depends on whether or not their brand of crazy jives with yours.
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Apr 15, 2014 01:04
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Halloween Jack posted:Only in the "science of management" could someone spin an entire book around the principle of not hiring people who throw childish tantrums. I have a senior colleague that throws a tantrum whenever things do not go this person's way (re: delaying product release dates for MONTHS for tweaks of dubious quality and miniscule importance.) This person literally acts like a child in that they cannot comprehend the thoughts of others in the slightest. Did I mention the constant need for affirmation and ego stroking? Absolutely nothing happens because they are a valuable rainmaker on the surface, although I think they have cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in operational costs, and built up countless internal resentment due to always being wrong and overworking us to the bone.
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Apr 15, 2014 04:38
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Every time I do consulting engagements for a certain very large client I am reminded that effective corporate governance and a culture of responsibility and competence do not necessarily correlate with success.
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Apr 15, 2014 14:19
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Kim Jong Il posted:Absolutely nothing happens because they are a valuable rainmaker on the surface...
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Apr 17, 2014 15:24
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It's 9:30am Thursday and we still have no idea if we're expected to come in to work tomorrow/Good Friday.  Yaaaaay it's Christmas Eve (/my birthday that I assumed I'd be off  ) all over again. I get that our business is tiny and we can generally fly by the seat of our pants in a lot of situations but it'd really be nice to have a general set of expectations to plan 3 day weekend or holiday trips around. Like a memo on January 1st saying, "We will be closed on the following holidays, unless a big order comes through and we can play it by ear for 1 or 2 necessary employees for a couple hours." That's reasonable to me. Not, "Are we working on Friday?" "Oh I don't know, I'll have to talk to [other boss] .... *Never follows up* "I've been updating my resume and poking around Monster but I'm not real confident in what I've seen so far. (Do I even belong in this thread? "Corporate" I guess refers to large businesses, but I've been reading the thread like a general "office worker" thread) Edit: vvvv That blowwwwwwws. Also I finally found out at 5:06pm that we are off tomorrow - yay! Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 15:26
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Do you deal with red tape, bullshit, awful office bosses, and TPS-styled reports? If so, you belong here.  I asked for Good Friday off for religious observance back in January. Denied for insufficient notice. I asked for ten days in January 2015, also in January 2014. Denied for insufficient notice. I've gone and filed for a vacation day for my anniversary in late 2016, just to be a dick. Countdown starts right now for 'denied for insufficient notice' hitting my inbox. This place is draining really fast. We have three quitting and five getting their contracts cut by the end of May - a 50% reduction in the department. They plan to replace one with an entry-level worker, one with a co-op, and the remaining six are having their work 'distributed to the remaining scientific staff.' I'm the only remaining scientist. 
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Apr 17, 2014 15:40
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