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Holy poo poo I hate new vendor set up procedures! I work at an ad agency. Setting up a new vendor doesn't ask for a ton of stupid irrelevant information, but their a massive pain in the rear end. Any time a new TV station, or radio station, or magazine, or website etc. etc. launches, we need to fill out these new vendor forms. It would make perfect sense if not for the fact that all those things are controlled by a handful of media conglomerates which are already set up as vendors. There's no process for setting up something new under an existing vendor, so every time something changes, new vendor form time and we have to ask them to fill in their billing/tax information all over again. Radio station changes call letters? TV station changes it's name? NEW VENDOR FORM! The vendor is already loving set up! You've been paying them for 20+ years! Why do we need to go through this every time a tiny change happens or they add something under their umbrella? God I hate you new vendor forms. Of course I hate dealing with my accounting department all together. I had the most wonderful argument with them on Monday. They told me everything from a couple months ago needed to be fixed by Friday. I just responded that since they hadn't ever told us anything was wrong until now, it was safe to assume there was nothing wrong, because why would you sit on it for 2 months and then tell us we needed to fix it be the end of the week. This lead to them going "oh, I thought because things were getting fixed without that information, you didn't need it" (I was fixing the stuff because I knew these guys were sitting on stuff and it was going to be stupid). My only response was "Just because I have a work around for you not providing the tools to do my job, that's not an excuse for you to not provide the tools to do my job. Because if something goes wrong, I'm throwing you under the bus for not giving us the correct information to do the work. So it's in your best interests to do so." These are the same idiots who last year paid invoices which weren't addressed to our company, and then managed to pay the wrong amounts. Gee... Sorry that I don't trust that you did your job perfectly after you gently caress up that badly.
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May 7, 2014 12:30
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Solkanar512 posted:Wait, so why is poo poo like a 50 word history of the company of any interest to the legal department? That sounds more like college application bullshit than anything someone in the real world would care about. Yeah, more the latter. I think that it's so that they can try and have accountability for when Ted in Sales has his brother go and make a business which then becomes the preferred vendor for paper (wherein Ted's brother simply orders paper from Staples, has it delivered, and collects a "fee"). Of course, the intent and the actual outcome are, I'm sure, two distinct things.
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May 7, 2014 12:36
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Xandu posted:Legal departments. People using possibly EOL'd SAP products. gently caress SAP, my last employer (under 75 employees) had two full-time positions dedicated to SAP, and couldn't keep someone to keep IT running sanely, or at all.
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May 7, 2014 13:03
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God I love annual raise time. Earlier this year we released our annual report for 2013 talking about how great our company did, how profitable we were, how our stock prices had grown compared to the same time the year before. Then just a few weeks ago our CEO released his quarterly video congratulating everyone one on a job well done, how great we were doing, yadda yadda yadda. Last week we had an all hands on deck meeting to tell us that due to not performing well last year and missing our targets by over $3M in 2013 there would be no raises for anyone.
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May 7, 2014 13:41
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I honestly (surprisingly?) had no complaints about annual raise time this year. I got the expected "no rating, insufficient data" since I'd only been at the company for 6 months in 2013, received a higher than expected (and then pro-rated) bonus, plus a pro-rated raise that, had I been there a full year, would've been perfectly acceptable. For once, I have no crazy stories.
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May 7, 2014 14:01
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Sundae posted:I honestly (surprisingly?) had no complaints about annual raise time this year. I got the expected "no rating, insufficient data" since I'd only been at the company for 6 months in 2013, received a higher than expected (and then pro-rated) bonus, plus a pro-rated raise that, had I been there a full year, would've been perfectly acceptable. Switch to bottled water, I think they're drugging the stuff that comes out of the tap.
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May 7, 2014 15:00
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Goddamn this company sometimes. -Cool Operations Director leaves in September, CEO takes over his role (but obviously cannot devote any time to it) -Bitch PM fired mid-December, leaves just me and 1 remote PM -Despite saying they are looking for replacement, they don't hire anyone all Q1. Q1 is a lovely gongshow of poo poo and fatigue I have not recovered from -Q2 starts similar to Q1 -Announced hiring of new PM! Said PM used to be a Director at one of the largest MR firms in the world, leaving me wondering a) why the hell she'd take this job and b) just how much more she's making -New PM is also remote, only in town for a week for a whirlwind tour which costs the company more than my bonus would be on a good year (sales helps ensure we don't have good years) -Today, after other remote PM returns from vacation, they fire her (and it's apparently not going well as they warned me about receiving calls from her and her family???) Back down to 2 PMs, one of whom has been an employee for 7 business days. Oh and they're trying to foist PM duties off to our programmers so now I can't get any programming done in a timely fashion.
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May 7, 2014 16:34
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ibntumart posted:By hosed up, do you mean you're not even getting your normally scheduled paycheck till the 21st? Even Texas doesn't allow employers to screw workers over that badly, so your state probably gives you some protection here. You might want to see if you can pressure the payroll idiot to do her drat job. No normal paycheck at all, I can't even fill out my timesheets. Basically we are doing a service-wide accounting change (that effects none of the 300k people that work here as we are all salaried) which has completely broken payroll. I've been very nice about it all and all mllaneza posted:People using possibly EOL'd SAP products. SAP is awful, unless you have tried to use the other work-based software system then it seems charming and fun.
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May 7, 2014 16:45
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Pleads posted:Goddamn this company sometimes. This is kind of like my situation. Our lead PM left in December on mat leave, I took the job for the year she's gone, but unfortunately she lied to me on her way out when she said they'd backfill my position for the year while I did her job... they didn't. So I had to keep all my projects (a full 40hr workload) and also start managing 9 other PMs. It's still like this now except one of our PMs (the one who has been here the longest) left last week and I got all his projects because my team all have a full workload. Basically I've been doing two jobs and response from management is "yeah it really sucks, we're real sorry" so I've started applying for other jobs. If I leave within the next month, this place is going to be in big trouble.
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May 7, 2014 17:21
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The Berzerker posted:Basically I've been doing two jobs and response from management is "yeah it really sucks, we're real sorry" so I've started applying for other jobs. If I leave within the next month, this place is going to be in big trouble.
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May 7, 2014 17:29
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Someone not involved in the verification process has decided to streamline the entire process so it moves quicker. Protest was met with "well let's try it and see how it actually works out!  " Now, instead of taking 1 day, it takes 2 days.
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May 7, 2014 20:07
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ladyweapon posted:Someone not involved in the verification process has decided to streamline the entire process so it moves quicker. Protest was met with "well let's try it and see how it actually works out! You know this is going to become the new permanent process.
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May 7, 2014 20:10
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Welp, possibly jumping out of the frying pan (one global company) to the fire (another global company). TThe email I received from them specifies business casual as the dress code for the first interview. Strikes me a bit odd, but ok. I haven't been to a job interview in 15 years.
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May 8, 2014 16:41
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TouchyMcFeely posted:God I love annual raise time. Do we work for the same company or something? I have gotten 2 increases for the past 5 years. One year other folks got one and I didn't, because my manager didn't complete the paperwork. 1.5% and 4%.
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May 8, 2014 18:02
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cyberia posted:But holy poo poo, who comes up with these vendor detail forms? Why do you need all this information for every single company you ever do business with? People whose jobs rely on supply chain management, mostly. The idea is to keep your supplier list to an absolute minimum, and use your company's economic 'oomph' to negotiate agreeable rates - you guarantee X purchases per annum, they guarantee Y costs on Z widget, 25% off catalogue price, and so on. Every purchase at Widgets-R-Us is a purchase that can't later be used as a bargaining chip with preferred supplier The Widget Place. Solkanar512 posted:Wait, so why is poo poo like a 50 word history of the company of any interest to the legal department? That sounds more like college application bullshit than anything someone in the real world would care about. Money laundering, conflicts of interest, insider trading, all those delicious tidbits that make auditors sit up a little straighter.
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May 8, 2014 18:34
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so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
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A little memo to anyone in charge of buying office supplies: do not try to save money by buying cheap furniture and appliances. I have spent two hours this morning trying to put this stupid thing together. For what you pay an employee for two hours of work, you can buy stuff that doesn't break when you breathe on it and doesn't need two or three people twisting, pulling, and manhandling the warped parts into place so that it can be screwed together.
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May 8, 2014 18:52
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Halloween Jack posted:A little memo to anyone in charge of buying office supplies: do not try to save money by buying cheap furniture and appliances. I have spent two hours this morning trying to put this stupid thing together. For what you pay an employee for two hours of work, you can buy stuff that doesn't break when you breathe on it and doesn't need two or three people twisting, pulling, and manhandling the warped parts into place so that it can be screwed together. Buying office equipment comes out of the capital expenditure budget which appears on a report that the FD has to show to the MD. Whereas your wasted time doesn't appear anywhere that can cause a problem to the FD. Much the same reason that a previous company would buy desktop inkjet printers instead of a large laser printer, even though the monthly cost of ink meant that the laser worked out cheaper within 8 months -and was faster, more reliable and more feature-packed.
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May 8, 2014 21:54
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May 8, 2014 23:27
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I do business software consulting. Our newest client is being a pain in the rear end, and the project has barely started. First they insist that a 140-hour project be completed in 4 weeks (usual elapsed time is 6-8 weeks), then they insist it be completed the first week of June. We just had our first meeting on Tuesday. Then, trying to schedule the first in-depth meeting for next week, they insist on Wednesday. I say "I'm sorry, I have no availability at all on that day." (I have many clients.) They continue to insist, I continue to say I can't do it. After the call they call their account executive and complain that I am "rude" and "inflexible". The account exec asked my Wednesday client if they would be willing to reschedule so that I can go see the shitlords. They graciously agree. I then get an email from the shitlords that everyone who comes to their office must undergo a 1-hour "safety training" and a 45-minute "IT orientation". These two trainings take place once a week, at set times, on different days. We do not deal with any kind of equipment, hardware, or IT infrastructure. I am also not sure that they understand that we are not employees, and that my entire project team will be billing them $200/hr each, plus travel time and expenses, to come down there two on two additional days. This is going to be excellent.
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May 9, 2014 01:18
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Volmarias posted:Yeah, more the latter. I think that it's so that they can try and have accountability for when Ted in Sales has his brother go and make a business which then becomes the preferred vendor for paper (wherein Ted's brother simply orders paper from Staples, has it delivered, and collects a "fee"). Holy Christ, this is like the state government and how it's easy to hire "someone's unemployable brother-in-law" to make a mint off of this "business" model. My department deals with special eating equipment for our people who have trouble eating on their own, so we get specially shaped bowls and plates and spoons etc. to enable them to eat more independently. Lately we've been dealing with a "vendor" who must get first dibs on any equipment they carry, no matter the cost. We recently needed to order some specially-shaped plastic bowls with little non-skid feet. When we bought them directly from the manufacturer, they cost about $20 apiece, which was expensive as it is. Then we were told we must purchase them through the vendor. Same product, FORTY dollars apiece. And all they do is order directly from the manufacturer, but we must pay this middle man to make life more complicated and more expensive for us. Presumably just to fund someone's unemployable relative. Bonus: a bunch of the bowls arrived defective, so now we're wasting time and money trying to get that sorted out. We complained to the head buyer in our purchasing department. She told us she totally agrees, except it's out of her hands, and so we still have to do all these convoluted workarounds for our preferred vendors.
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May 9, 2014 01:57
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I really want to see how this unfolds.
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May 9, 2014 06:50
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May 9, 2014 07:09
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Sailor_Spoon posted:Grab a pile of them off monoprice and sell them to your coworkers for a healthy markup. That way when you refuse to let them use yours, you're not being unreasonable, you're just protecting your business interests! Seriously gonna do this now with $1 ebay chargers I already ordered. Yesterday had coworker #1 "borrow" it before I got to the office, then coworker #2 took it from #1. I then asked chief suspect #2 if he took mine, he said no (since he took it from #1), I checked #1's table while he was away, it wasn't there either. Much fun was had when my phone died before lunch.
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May 9, 2014 11:24
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Ottoman posted:We complained to the head buyer in our purchasing department. She told us she totally agrees, except it's out of her hands, and so we still have to do all these convoluted workarounds for our preferred vendors. My last job was in the Data & Informatics division of a large company, as a contractor. Contractors could only be hired through three or four specific companies, each of which was notorious for being terrible and awful. Many of the contractors were from abroad and these companies would extort the poo poo out of them via H1B renewals and greencard sponsorships. In my case I'm a U.S. Citizen so I didn't have to deal with that garbage, but I did have to deal with them skimming 40% off the top of my bill rate. In return they, um, handled payroll or something? I literally never heard from them except requests for timesheets and they graciously sent a box of chocolates at Christmas. Not just that, these companies would treat the client like poo poo by sending random fools as contractors to fill our development positions. They would fake the phone interview and our department wasn't allowed to start using Skype as a basic screening tool because of [some HR reason]. As a result, JimBob would show up to work claiming to be an Informatica specialist with three years of experience and then spend four weeks drawing random arrows with his GUI and "reading documentation". I had to work with a specimen of this type on a two-man project where he was supposed to be the lead developer. At least on a forty-man project these guys can hide in the corner while five people carry the team (source: another project), but in a two-man assignment there's nowhere to go. Luckily he got canned 8 weeks later, but repercussions to the vendor? Zero except a wad of cash for their troubles  I'm convinced that HR departments are full of huge shitheads because why else would they draw up these random 'preferred vendor' lists which means you're stuck working with some scumbag IT body shop, desperately hoping that the next guy they send isn't a chimpanzee in a hat. FieryBalrog fucked around with this message at 16:11 on May 9, 2014 |
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May 9, 2014 16:00
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It's because your company's upper management wants to minimize headcount.
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May 9, 2014 17:14
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Drink and Fight posted:I then get an email from the shitlords that everyone who comes to their office must undergo a 1-hour "safety training" and a 45-minute "IT orientation". These two trainings take place once a week, at set times, on different days. We do not deal with any kind of equipment, hardware, or IT infrastructure. I am also not sure that they understand that we are not employees, and that my entire project team will be billing them $200/hr each, plus travel time and expenses, to come down there two on two additional days. Had a customer pull this kind of nonsense. It was a gold mine out in the middle of nowhere Nevada. Nearest hotel was over an hour away from their site. Their training happened once a month starting at 6:00AM on a Monday morning. It's amazing how quickly that "mandatory" training was waived when I told them that I would charge them 8 hours of double time for making me travel on Sunday to a "local" hotel plus the regular rate of $415/hr for all of my time they were going to waste on Monday. And just like you, none of the safety video has anything to do with what I was there to do.
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May 10, 2014 00:32
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GanjamonII posted:Do we work for the same company or something? My favorite thing about reading stories like this is realizing that inflation is 2-3% a year. Congratulations on your pay cut! 
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May 10, 2014 03:31
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FieryBalrog posted:JimBob would show up to work claiming to be an Informatica specialist with three years of experience Ugh, bad memories. Informatica is perhaps the worst piece of poo poo I have ever dealt with.
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May 10, 2014 12:00
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TouchyMcFeely posted:It's amazing how quickly that "mandatory" training was waived when I told them that I would charge them 8 hours of double time for making me travel on Sunday to a "local" hotel plus the regular rate of $415/hr for all of my time they were going to waste on Monday. Tell us again what it is you do so we can have a shot at 415 an hour?
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May 11, 2014 08:06
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Keetron posted:Tell us again what it is you do so we can have a shot at 415 an hour? Please don't say prostitute, please don't say prostitute, please don't say prostitute.
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May 11, 2014 08:50
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Oh I am a whore alright. But all the money I bring in goes directly to my pimp and I only get a small cut. I'm a Field Service Engineer. $415 is our billable rate for the silly bastards who don't think purchasing a service contract is a good idea.
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May 11, 2014 13:23
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I'm a little surprised you divide it up hourly, we flat bill $2500 a day, plus expenses. I generally report to the closest half day
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May 11, 2014 15:09
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FieryBalrog posted:My last job was in the Data & Informatics division of a large company, as a contractor. Contractors could only be hired through three or four specific companies, each of which was notorious for being terrible and awful. Many of the contractors were from abroad and these companies would extort the poo poo out of them via H1B renewals and greencard sponsorships. In my case I'm a U.S. Citizen so I didn't have to deal with that garbage, but I did have to deal with them skimming 40% off the top of my bill rate. In return they, um, handled payroll or something? I literally never heard from them except requests for timesheets and they graciously sent a box of chocolates at Christmas. Oh Christ I'm contracted right now, my gross pay is $10/hr. A few times I have seen my bill, as in, what my agency is getting for my services from the place where I work, and it's almost $14/hr, which would make my wage a lot more liveable. And as a bonus, one time our business office accidentally sent our department the bill for contractors in other departments. My same agency was paying them more than they were paying me which pissed me the gently caress off since they were comparable positions. Anyway HR has nothing to do with selecting my agency as the sole vendor, my employer (government) chose the lowest bidder and that's how come I get paid so well. Oh and you got a box of chocolates?!?! I once got an "employee of the month" gift from my agency for no apparent reason. In the mail I received a reusable lunch bag with my agency's name printed on it and a broken plastic frame with an Employee of the Month certificate. Kind of sums up my experience working for them as they continue to profit off of me for doing absolutely nothing. The government even contracted out my payroll now, so my agency doesn't even handle that!
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May 11, 2014 15:22
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I feel as a contractor in that kind of situation (a disadvantageous one) you should just be continuously looking for another opportunity. Just poke for somewhere that will take you as a full member of the organization, because pay and benefits aren't the only places where you end up being 2nd class. A lot of places don't consider contractor work like that as experience when setting your salary when you do get a nice position, so the longer you stay the more you hurt yourself in the long run. Vacation, promotion opportunity, even little poo poo like desk location can be terrible. There are some people that will just cruise in those positions forever content to trade the lack of responsibility with lower pay but I seriously doubt they even care enough to complain on a forum about it.
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May 11, 2014 16:56
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majestic12 posted:I'm a little surprised you divide it up hourly, we flat bill $2500 a day, plus expenses. I generally report to the closest half day Not sure why we do it the way we do. Maybe because it's easier to estimate charges when parts and time are all that are involved. We don't charge for hotel, meals, etc. They're all built into the hourly rate.
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May 11, 2014 17:44
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The reason the hourly rate is done is to discourage people who can actually run the goddamned math from choosing it as an option, and suckerpunch the idiots who think it's going to be either a one off or a 'better deal', especially when the service contracts come with unlimited hours to normal hours service
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May 11, 2014 23:03
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Edit: never mind
Volmarias fucked around with this message at 04:29 on May 12, 2014 |
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May 12, 2014 04:10
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FieryBalrog posted:My last job was in the Data & Informatics division of a large company, as a contractor. Contractors could only be hired through three or four specific companies, each of which was notorious for being terrible and awful. Many of the contractors were from abroad and these companies would extort the poo poo out of them via H1B renewals and greencard sponsorships. In my case I'm a U.S. Citizen so I didn't have to deal with that garbage, but I did have to deal with them skimming 40% off the top of my bill rate. In return they, um, handled payroll or something? I literally never heard from them except requests for timesheets and they graciously sent a box of chocolates at Christmas. One of the offshore companies that I work for/with does this all the time. They will submit the same consultant to 3-4 positions and do all of the interviews, paperwork, etc. to try and get the highest rate. From the surface everything looks like it's golden. The client company thinks that a consultant is gonna show up on Monday and they're totally baffled when nobody comes. It is so dishonest and frustrating. There doesn't seem to be any kind of repercussions for this, either, because of that whole approved vendor thing. You just about poo poo on the client company CEOs desk and not lose your approved vendor stats, it's ridiculous.
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May 12, 2014 14:33
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Ottoman posted:Oh Christ I'm contracted right now, my gross pay is $10/hr. A few times I have seen my bill, as in, what my agency is getting for my services from the place where I work, and it's almost $14/hr, which would make my wage a lot more liveable. And as a bonus, one time our business office accidentally sent our department the bill for contractors in other departments. My same agency was paying them more than they were paying me which pissed me the gently caress off since they were comparable positions. This is pretty much how I got my full time job. Spent a year contracting with the government and then after my contract ended I magically had a full time job. Now I admit due to the fact that all my experience was from the private sector I was willing to take the poo poo of being on contract, otherwise I would rather work at McDonalds.
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May 12, 2014 19:09
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sbaldrick posted:This is pretty much how I got my full time job. Spent a year contracting with the government and then after my contract ended I magically had a full time job. Now I admit due to the fact that all my experience was from the private sector I was willing to take the poo poo of being on contract, otherwise I would rather work at McDonalds. That's how I got this job too. Contract work is an awesome way to get your foot in the door and get experience imo. This isn't a government job, it's a private company, but most people on the bottom of the totem poles here start as temps to make sure they're not useless shitheads, and once they prove themselves they'll get taken on full time. I was a temp for over a year, and I'm sure the temping agency was sorry to see one of their little cash cows go.
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May 12, 2014 19:45
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