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I am fortunate not to have a direct dial, so if I catch someone doing that I have them told that I am in a meeting and dump them into my voicemail. Look, you want to talk on the phone, that's great - give me enough time to read what you said, and we'll be set.
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Jul 7, 2014 17:42
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The Berzerker posted:I hate when somebody sends you an email asking for something, then immediately calls you asking for the same thing. I can read the email, it's fine, I'm just not The Flash and it takes more than 3 seconds to process your request, doofus. No no no. This is what I enjoy on a pretty much two or three times a week basis: 1) Email #1 received at 0236 hrs: blah blah blah appreciate your most urgent response 2) Lync IM received at 0300 hrs (not I am not at work, obviously): dear <my last name> can you please check and revert ref <super duper important thing> for <very valued customer> 3) My cellular rings at 0415 hrs with Singapore, India, or China country/city code 4) Email #2 received at 0700 hrs: good day we have not received your response to the below, please do the needful, thanks in advance It's as if the idea of time zones is a completely new thing that's impossible to grasp and it's ALWAYS something incredibly mundane for which we've answered a dozen times in the last 6 months alone. I dread the day that corporate says we HAVE to install the lync messenger apps on our company issued iphones.
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Jul 7, 2014 18:10
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I ran a global IT support team about three years back and when I moved into a new role with the same company I would still get instant messages or calls at all hours of the day about sev 1 or 2 incidents or requests of some kind. I must have told every single person on the the service desk team who was routing these that I had moved out of that team and who to talk to, including their management and our service delivery management. I got rid of my company cell phone (no more being on call 24x7) and basically stopped caring as they stopped calling after business hours following that. Emails/IMs started to die down and then basically stopped about a year ago. Until last week, when someone IMed me asking about an incident. I dont know where these guys are getting my name, all I can guess is that someone printed out contact details 3+ years ago and stuck them up on the walls of cubes in both North America and India, and these just get passed down through the rotation of helpdesk staff. I almost feel famous.
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Jul 7, 2014 18:33
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Had someone try to call me twice, I didn't pick up because, well, busy. They left a message saying they were going to send me an email. Why did you leave a loving message? I really hate checking my voice mail for some reason.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:36
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FrozenVent posted:Had someone try to call me twice, I didn't pick up because, well, busy. They left a message saying they were going to send me an email. I have to do this on occasion and it irritates me. The only time I do it is when something is about to cost a lot of money, but it is something I avoid at all costs if possible.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:48
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ladyweapon posted:I have to do this on occasion and it irritates me. The only time I do it is when something is about to cost a lot of money, but it is something I avoid at all costs if possible. You have to sit through all the menus and old messages and number options and remember your passcode (that you don't remember because you don't use voice mail all that much) and really all that person had to do was give you a text.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:55
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My voicemails are integrated into outlook and (poorly) converted to text. Still totally unnecessary to leave them.
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Jul 7, 2014 20:06
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FrozenVent posted:Had someone try to call me twice, I didn't pick up because, well, busy. They left a message saying they were going to send me an email. Yeah this is basically what I was getting at, it drives me insane. Especially when it isn't something urgent. Don't call me at 12pm begging me to assign a PM to your new project when we have a regularly scheduled meeting at 2pm to assign PMs to new projects. It's gonna get done! In two hours! You idiot! I mean in the long run it isn't a big deal, it's just one of those minor gripes that makes you shake your head.
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Jul 7, 2014 20:09
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Overcommunication beats under-communication. I've had team members not check their messages/email/skype for months...only to find out they have another job across the country.
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Jul 8, 2014 00:04
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I got a guy asking me for help on setting up his operating system. "What did you do  "Turns out he wanted to set up his signature in outlook.
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Jul 8, 2014 00:07
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Golden Bee posted:Overcommunication beats under-communication. I've had team members not check their messages/email/skype for months...only to find out they have another job across the country. This is true. I don't know if I just haven't reached the point in my career where I get too many emails to read them all or if I'm just on top of things (and know how to set up filters to automatically delete unimportant emails), but sometimes I'll glance at someone's outlook and see hundreds of unread messages and it's like come-on, no wonder you're always uninformed. edit: The worst is this one guy whose outlook isn't set up for conversation view and who also gets really far behind on his email. So regularly I'll get an email from him where he belatedly responds to the first message in a conversation without having read a single one of the follow ups.
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Jul 8, 2014 00:17
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Xandu posted:edit: The worst is this one guy whose outlook isn't set up for conversation view and who also gets really far behind on his email. So regularly I'll get an email from him where he belatedly responds to the first message in a conversation without having read a single one of the follow ups. My manager does this all the time. I think she also has her outlook set up so everyone she deals with get routed into a different folder or something... Every week, same exchange. "Why didn't you tell me about this?" "I emailed you about this issue on date, at time. The message is attached. She will also get pissy if you remind her of a deadline, or push her to take action on something.
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Jul 8, 2014 00:32
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Xandu posted:This is true. I don't know if I just haven't reached the point in my career where I get too many emails to read them all or if I'm just on top of things (and know how to set up filters to automatically delete unimportant emails), but sometimes I'll glance at someone's outlook and see hundreds of unread messages and it's like come-on, no wonder you're always uninformed. In other news, I saw a screenshot of my work nemesis's inbox. 700 unread emails. No wonder everyone is coming to me for stuff they need now. She emailed me in a panic because she and competent coworker are on vacation, competent coworker set the general inquires email to forward to her, and she got THREE EMAILS IN A ROW OMG DEFENESTRATION HELP
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Jul 8, 2014 00:41
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KoB posted:I got a guy asking me for help on setting up his operating system. "What did you do You threw me off there for a minute, I thought you were saying that he tried to change his signature in Outlook and ended up having to flatten and reinstall the OS, which is something we would have needed details about.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:31
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An email has come in! Name: some guy Subject: Call me Body: Okay, I'll call you late for dinner. The guy quit and I'm getting his job. 
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Jul 8, 2014 04:33
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Sometimes I'd email someone a file then go find them in person to talk about it, but I think that's a normal use of the email/visit blend. I'd also sometimes email people a recap of a phone/in-person conversation to have it in writing so they couldn't be all "nuh uh I never said that!!" later. Most of the people in my office were fairly tech-savvy, except for the one old guy who refused to use a computer at all beyond the bare minimum required (email and timecards) and did everything else in writing but he retired. We did have one guy who didn't understand what AutoCAD was and thought that asking for an "AutoCAD format" drawing was asking for a drawing with dimensions on it, not a .dwg. I wasted a whole day finding the original .dwg of the PDF he was talking about (of course they needed it NOW NOW NOW) only to find out he doesn't even have AutoCAD installed on his computer, much less knows how to use it.
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Jul 8, 2014 05:29
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Alright I've reached the point where I get home angry at my boss, go to bed angry and wake up angry. I'm in talk with a potential employer to make a move but if it doesn't work out I'm quitting anyway. This is loving unhealthy. Yesterday she referred to me and her one other report as "the boys", for some reason that pissed me off to an incredible level. I did call her out on it, in front of her boss.
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Jul 8, 2014 12:53
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FrozenVent posted:Alright I've reached the point where I get home angry at my boss, go to bed angry and wake up angry. I'm in talk with a potential employer to make a move but if it doesn't work out I'm quitting anyway. This is loving unhealthy.
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Jul 8, 2014 12:58
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My skillset is incredibly specialized; there really aren't any private sector jobs for me in the area, and I'm missing a certification the Feds really really like. Thanks for the heads up though, I'll look into it. Right now I'm looking into relocating, or going back to what I was doing before I went corporate.
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Jul 8, 2014 13:07
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FrozenVent posted:Yesterday she referred to me and her one other report as "the boys", for some reason that pissed me off to an incredible level. I did call her out on it, in front of her boss. Call her out on what exactly? It doesn't make matters any better to react irrationally and escalate hostilities.
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Jul 8, 2014 16:50
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Blindeye posted:So, first post about my job. I work for the feds so in some ways my job is so much safer than everyone else's and I'm so sorry for people like Sundae. Do you work where I work, did Stephen Harper touch your government agency in an inappropriate way? If so I suggest you do what everyone at my agency does which is hide in there offices, take long lunches till the regime changes. EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:You're in or around Ottawa, aren't you? Sign up for Peter's New Jobs, it's a daily mailing list of all professional job postings in the area. Saved me lots of time. Peter's New Jobs is ok, but it's hard to justify for the money. If you are with the government you can move agencies and jobs again somehow. If you are in IT apply to CGI and be a government email contractor for 100k a year (I'm not making that one up)
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Jul 8, 2014 17:21
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epenthesis posted:Call her out on what exactly? It doesn't make matters any better to react irrationally and escalate hostilities. On referring to her employees - neither of which are entry-level - as "the boys"? I wouldn't react if it came from anyone else, but it's part of this pattern of demeaning us in front of the big boss and external stakeholders that she's been following for a while. Her management style is also extremely condescending and infantilizing, so it's really easy to interpret it as either meaning children or servants. I didn't make a huge deal out of it, basically the exchanges went like this: Manager: "(...) let's take the boys." Me: "The boys?" Big boss: "The guys." And he moved the conversation on to something else, because he's a class act. I'm weighing the pros and cons of having a discussion with the big boss about her, but at this point I don't think it's worth the aggravation since I'll be gone before the end of summer. He'd already promised changes that would have fixed most of the problems six months ago, and nothing was done to enact those new policies, so I still get treated like a five years old. For reference, I have seven years of experience in my field, advanced certification and an advanced degree. This isn't a case of me acting like a five year old either, trust me. I should have left a long time ago, and in hindsight there were red flags during the hiring process that I should have picked up on.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:22
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FrozenVent posted:I wouldn't react if it came from anyone else, but it's part of this pattern of demeaning us in front of the big boss and external stakeholders that she's been following for a while. Her management style is also extremely condescending and infantilizing, so it's really easy to interpret it as either meaning children or servants. Worst example was just recently, it was the last day for a lot of people who were getting laid off. We had a little party thing for them. So she goes up to one of our best people who was getting bumped out and says "I hope you finished your paperwork and told [your replacement] about your workload" in front of a bunch of our coworkers. Demeaning on so many levels. The temptation builds for me every day, along with my anger, to tell her that she has no idea how far she's pushing that wedge of disrespect between herself and the people who are trying to support her unfounded emergencies. The Berzerker posted:And it's not even an important thing!!!  "But the sky is falling, 'honey!'"Annakie posted:A couple of years ago our receptionist called me over because "every time I send an email two error messages pop up". After having her show me what was happening, it was Spellcheck not recognizing the company name and CEO's last name in our company-mandated email signature.
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Jul 9, 2014 00:15
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I recently had my "development meeting," which is what my company had replaced reviews with. Instead of having a performance review, you come up with some goals to work on over the next six months. The goals I was given by my boss include: (1) Successfully transition from full time in my dept. to part time and part time in another dept. (2) Revise outdated default information in items I work on (3) Create training materials and train a new person to do a certain type of work. (4) Work with a team to try to create a more efficient workflow. She was like "ooh this is a lot of stuff! Are you sure you're going to be able to do all this within the next six months?" The first thing isn't really a "goal." I have to do that no matter what, and as long as I basically show up to work every day and learn the new stuff I need to do, then I will have "successfully transitioned." The second thing is something that's a normal part of my work and that I was already doing (but other people weren't, so it somehow became my "goal"). I have all the training materials and stuff ready for the third thing, I just need to wait until my boss sets up a training time for me and the other person. That will take a day. The majority of my work for the efficiency thing has been done, although there may be follow-up stuff I have to do as it comes up. It's been a month, and I'm already 90% done with my six month "goals." I can still guarantee that come raise time, I will get the lowest increase possible.
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Jul 9, 2014 00:57
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Lowly posted:
That's because you're making it look easy. It may be easy to you, but in bossland that means you are not working hard and don't deserve a raise. There is a reason that one of the tech complaint threads in SH/SC is subtitled "My boss said I don't scream enough." When your boss said "Wow, that is a lot" you should have agreed that it was a lot, but you were confident that you could get it done with her help. Help in this case means not giving you even more work, since you have a lot on your plate already. Then for the next 6 months work on what is on your plate. If something is almost done, finish it whenever, but schedule meetings with the key players a week and a month after the fact to see how things are working. Same thing with training someone. You can keep training them for 6 months, even if initial training takes 2 weeks. Schedule follow ups to see how they are doing. If you can help them somehow or or even just get them out of work for a few, you may have an ally. Find ways to do things that look like what you are supposed to be doing, but are actually training to make you better, get you better opportunities, etc. And now the important part: remember, you are always busy, but are making progress. You don't want to be the whiner who always complains, but you do want to tell management how many mountains you had to move to deliver results. That way you will satisfy a boss' need to have everyone working all the time, and you will have completed your goals. Sorry, you still won't get a raise, but at least you wont get your hours cut or more work given to you.
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Jul 9, 2014 02:04
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sbaldrick posted:Do you work where I work, did Stephen Harper touch your government agency in an inappropriate way? If so I suggest you do what everyone at my agency does which is hide in there offices, take long lunches till the regime changes. No no, though it's sad to hear our disease is spreading. Our work is too important though for us to act like jackasses so most of us still put in unpaid overtime just to get the job done because they hired very dedicated/loyal people. In new news I had to interview a new senior staff member. Very smart, very technically capable. Barely able to make eye contact, speak clearly (mumbles and has a thick accent) and has a typo-filled resume. He's lived here for 40 years with a PhD writing reports. I don't even know. We told management that since 50% of our work is documentation and person to person contact with teleconferences, meetings, etc. that he isn't a good fit. They tell the political appointees. They tell us to reconsider, because they need to increase hiring this year to Performance appraisals get finished in 30 days, pay decisions 2 weeks after that...here's hoping.
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Jul 9, 2014 02:44
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FrozenVent posted:On referring to her employees - neither of which are entry-level - as "the boys"? I wouldn't react if it came from anyone else, but it's part of this pattern of demeaning us in front of the big boss and external stakeholders that she's been following for a while. Her management style is also extremely condescending and infantilizing, so it's really easy to interpret it as either meaning children or servants. Sometimes it just rubs the wrong way... a cynic tone as an aside to the big man may have been a better way to handle that but meh, these things blow over and sometimes you got to stand up for yourself. In my younger years I had a CEO tell me to "listen to his words" like he was instructing an 5 year old at bed time right in front of my colleagues. My boss looked at me with a "WHATEVER IT IS YOU ARE GOING TO SAY RIGHT NOW, DON'T"... i swallowed it. Still nags at me 8 years later. What a douche. I was probably being mouthy to begin with not realizing you're just supposed to nod at their stupid meaningless ideas and act like they are important until they go away and then you go back to work. More recently I had a hotshot VP sign my expense report and tell me "you're worth it, boy". I have loving a decade in my industry, he just started a couple years ago before moving into my company (not the first choice i might add...) and I'm 8 years older than him. Just take your MBA and sign for money I spent doing work you don't fully understand and go back to your office and gently caress up something on the production floor with your spreadsheets. what a dick. sigh
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Jul 9, 2014 05:42
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Xibanya posted:So yesterday I handed in my two weeks notice. Director said she would talk to the department I want to go to to see if I could go there NOW and get back to me today with the understanding that I'd quit otherwise. Coincidentally two others announced they were quitting. I guess I'm still waiting on an answer but maybe this would be a good time to start making extortionary demands. I would say that you should never use "I will quit" to extort a pay raise because my view from personal experience, and that of a lot of the managers I've had, is that a pay raise is only a short term fix and the underlying reasons that cause the threat to be made will still be there, so you should just let them go. Basically it's past the point of no return, if you get to that stage the relationship between the employer and the employee has broken down irreversibly.
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Jul 9, 2014 13:52
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I was just made to feel guilty by something at work. gently caress this and gently caress life it's time for drinking. One of my many duties is managing our vehicle pool for reasons that I"m not sure about. I was away on Monday and by replacement promised the one nice van we have would be back in time for the whole executive team to take it on another trip tomorrow. Not only did I not know about said trip and it's booking, but I just got guilted because I can't say for sure whether or not the van will be returned in time for them to take it. It also may be too late in the day to rent a car for them. gently caress everyone.
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Jul 9, 2014 18:22
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Defenestration posted:We have corporate gmail and the number of people (young people!) who complained about conversation view blows my mind. I hate conversation view. The people in my office are the worst (best?) at seeing email from me and responding to it about a completely different issue. And as far as I know, to this date, Google still doesnt allow you to separate conversations. Turned that poo poo off, gently caress conversation view. e: It also creates the great issue that I get to deal with: they dont understand how conversation view works and always need my help to forward the right message. If you click forward on this message it just sends this one. Yeah just the one. No they wont get the rest. Yes Im sure. Trust me, Im sure. Really. Just the stuff on the screen now. Yes. KoB fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 01:08
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KoB posted:I hate conversation view. The people in my office are the worst (best?) at seeing email from me and responding to it about a completely different issue. And as far as I know, to this date, Google still doesnt allow you to separate conversations. I agree 100%. Add in the stupid part of conversation view where I try to open the very first email I have ever received from a person, the subject is "Contact Info" or something. I click into it, and conversation view says "Hey, there is an email from 3 years ago with that exact same subject, I better put it in the conversation view even though it has 100% nothing to do with this conversation! Do you want to add them to the conversation? Do you? Huh? Do you?" And on my phone, ugh, thats the worst. I clicked on that very same message and instead of bringing me to a point where I can read it (and add him as a contact on my phone) it brings me to the conversation view. I now need to click the same god drat message a second time because that message from 3 years ago is part of the 'conversation'. I clicked the loving message, let me read it and dont make me click multiple times to read it. VVVV Six months after converting to Gmail for a business I've used the Google Sync tool and switched everyone to Outlook. If you have a program or website that generates an email template for you, it will pop up in outlook all written and perfect just to hit send. It will not do that for Gmail on the web. Spermy Smurf fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 14:06
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We use gmail for business here, and i was 100% onboard with using it. I had lables / everything set up to organize my daily email, but lately im finding it impractical to keep emails allocated to different topics / clients / etc . Is there some other aspect i need to do with this, or should i just bite the bullet and switch to outlook
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Jul 10, 2014 14:30
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We are working with google mail and while most people like it for the chat function, some have made the move back to outlook because that is what they are used to. Now we can never chat, which is nice in itself. Oh, to be able to use outlook you need to file a request with IT detailing why you need Outlook and get approval from the CIO, mostly to keep licencing costs down it seems.
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Jul 10, 2014 14:52
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Update: Things at the office have taken a turn for the ridiculous (people were ordered to take time off, written lists of recriminations came out of drawers). I think it all started because I went to the big boss and told him what was going on; he wasn't aware of how bad things were apparently (including thinking I was still in charge of a big project he'd assigned me) I have an interview somewhere else next week. As soon as I hear back either way, I'm giving notice.
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Jul 11, 2014 16:44
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FrozenVent posted:Update: Things at the office have taken a turn for the ridiculous (people were ordered to take time off, written lists of recriminations came out of drawers). I think it all started because I went to the big boss and told him what was going on; he wasn't aware of how bad things were apparently (including thinking I was still in charge of a big project he'd assigned me) And whoever took that project away from you without tell them is now fired.
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Jul 11, 2014 18:52
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Roundboy posted:We use gmail for business here, and i was 100% onboard with using it. I had lables / everything set up to organize my daily email, but lately im finding it impractical to keep emails allocated to different topics / clients / etc . Is there some other aspect i need to do with this, or should i just bite the bullet and switch to outlook Never label, just archive and search when you need to.
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Jul 12, 2014 01:00
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Cocoa Crispies posted:Never label, just archive and search when you need to. Which in outlook users shouldn't do... outlook's search is utter poo poo.
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Jul 12, 2014 03:07
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Cocoa Crispies posted:Never label, just archive and search when you need to. Labeling is useful when your work is highly project-oriented. You can't trust coworkers to use useful keywords.
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Jul 12, 2014 04:17
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Aristotle Animes posted:Which in outlook users shouldn't do... outlook's search is utter poo poo. To be fair, gmail's search is pretty bad too. Which is a little disappointing coming from Google. The stupidest thing about gmail though is the "important" label. Literally 99% of emails are labeled IMPORTANT. And the only way I know to turn that poo poo off is to make a specific filter: Matches: to:(myemail@gmail.com) Do this: Never mark it as important Of course, it still randomly breaks when you get CC'd. Which happens all the time with my work gmail. FieryBalrog fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 14:14
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FieryBalrog posted:To be fair, gmail's search is pretty bad too. Which is a little disappointing coming from Google. Just turn that off, it's under settings/inbox. 
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Jul 13, 2014 23:05
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