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If there is one good thing about working for the government it's my absolute gold plated pension (beyond the principle getting raided by various governments to pay for things). I only have 27 more years before I can retire with 60% of my current salary, but if I stay 5 more I get 70%. I will be all of 62 with 35 years service. Of course to get that I have to deal with government bullshit for 35 years.
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Sep 11, 2014 18:38
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It could be worse, you could work for the government but as a contractor so you get all of the rules but none of the pension. (like me) (  )
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Sep 11, 2014 23:19
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Xibanya posted:Yesterday I requisitioned new post-it notes (a non standard item on our purchasing list) and today my request was approved. The system works! Last spring I was like "can I buy some good pens?" and my boss said sure, go look through the giant staples catalog and spend up to $200 on anything you want. I went hog wild
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Sep 11, 2014 23:26
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Defenestration posted:Last spring I was like "can I buy some good pens?" and my boss said sure, go look through the giant staples catalog and spend up to $200 on anything you want. So which $200 pen did you buy?
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Sep 12, 2014 00:07
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Rodent Mortician posted:Our physicians have a cunning and efficient method of receipt reimbursement called "jam all the receipts into your pocket, find them six months later, and then whine that they won't reimburse you for it". Which is part of why I just left! Is it normal to be working right up until the minute you leave? Today is my last day at my current job, after a standard two-week notice. We didn't meet to talk about covering my job duties until Wednesday, and I'm turning in all my off-boarding stuff today. I have had work-study students who are going to cover some of my job duties show up yesterday and this morning, with the expectation that they could sit with me at my desk for 3 hours of training. I have had faculty handing me reimbursements, travel paperwork, etc. right up through this morning, even though all of them were informed that I'm leaving. I'm starting to get the impression that they weren't prepared for me to leave! I learned yesterday that they appointed a search committee to find my replacement. I've never heard of them doing this for a non-faculty position. I am a glorified receptionist and almost the lowest-paid employee in the department.
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Sep 12, 2014 18:26
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Halloween Jack posted:Is it normal to be working right up until the minute you leave? Today is my last day at my current job, after a standard two-week notice. We didn't meet to talk about covering my job duties until Wednesday, and I'm turning in all my off-boarding stuff today. I have had work-study students who are going to cover some of my job duties show up yesterday and this morning, with the expectation that they could sit with me at my desk for 3 hours of training. I have had faculty handing me reimbursements, travel paperwork, etc. right up through this morning, even though all of them were informed that I'm leaving. I'm starting to get the impression that they weren't prepared for me to leave! They probably weren't ready for you to leave. How companies do it varies, but I've found that it tends to be either your example (crazy rush to get everything done involving the departing individual) or suddenly you have no work to do at all and sit around for the next month.
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Sep 12, 2014 20:26
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I was literally in the middle of a drawing when security came to get me on my last day. I had no formal handing off of anything, I just wrote a novel of an email explaining what I was working on that I sent to my coworkers who were most likely to get my stuff dumped on them and cc'd all 5 or 6 of my bosses on it.
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Sep 12, 2014 20:31
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I was literally in the middle of a drawing when security came to get me on my last day. I had no formal handing off of anything, I just wrote a novel of an email explaining what I was working on that I sent to my coworkers who were most likely to get my stuff dumped on them and cc'd all 5 or 6 of my bosses on it.
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Sep 12, 2014 20:40
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Halloween Jack posted:This is funny, because I'm going from the Pathology department to the Art department, and you could be an artist or a phlebotomist. Ha, engineering actually. So it was very technical art.
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Sep 12, 2014 20:51
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At one internship I had in undergrad about a week before my last day I thought of a great joke name for a huge package of code I'd been working on off and on for most of that time. So I spent a major chunk of my last week refactoring the code so that relevant comments and function names were (consistently) renamed to include said joke name. So I guess you could say I made my own heavy-lifting duties for the end of my employment period. It was a descriptive name that initialized to NATTYLITE so I'd say it was totally worth it.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:23
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Last job, I emailed my notice around 19:00, boss replied at 20:30 to tell me to work from home until my time was up. I'd told him I was resigning during the day, but I think it was a bit of a shock otherwise. FrozenVent fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 00:03
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Omne posted:I also don't have a path to advancement right now, due to a boss who cannot bring himself to submit paperwork for my promotion. Oh my god, you too? And here I thought that my morbidly lazy boss was the only one who can't be arsed to literally push a button to put me up a grade. I've been waiting since June. Joke's on him; I've set a mental date where if it hasn't happened (it won't), I'm resigning. No kids, no credit cards, so peace out.
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Sep 13, 2014 00:49
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joyfulgirl129 posted:Oh my god, you too? And here I thought that my morbidly lazy boss was the only one who can't be arsed to literally push a button to put me up a grade. I've been waiting since June. I've been waiting since June as well. Of 2013.
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Sep 13, 2014 02:38
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Omne posted:I've been waiting since June as well. Of 2013. poo poo son what are you waiting for? I've been bumped twice since then and I'm not exactly on the fast track compared to some of my friends.
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Sep 13, 2014 02:49
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Discussing moving on, huh. We moved to a new city about six weeks ago and I made the mistake of taking a job that I've done before at my old company, at decent pay. I thought I could stick it out for a while because I've done the work before and it was a new location with mostly unfamiliar staff. Nope. I quickly realized that everything was going to be the same as before (hit the ? on my post) and I was not as mentally prepared as I thought I was. I lasted four days and emailed my resignation letter this evening so that the company could move on as soon as possible. Trying to convince myself and others of the validity of that decision took a bit of doing. I wish things could have gone differently, but those were four of the longest days ever. I'm happy to be back on the hunt.
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Sep 13, 2014 08:35
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ladyweapon posted:So which $200 pen did you buy? Thankfully the best pens money can buy are like $14 a box
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Sep 13, 2014 11:05
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Defenestration posted:Thankfully the best pens money can buy are like $14 a box Recovering pen hoarder checking in. Link please.
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Sep 13, 2014 15:49
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Omne posted:I get a pension and a 401k, and I don't work for an energy company or in pharma. Suck it. Sounds like you work for a defense contractor?
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Sep 13, 2014 16:08
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Fortunately, I have pretty free rein to buy office supplies like pens and poo poo. If I didn't, I wouldn't have any pens; I collect a lot of signatures and they disappear.
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Sep 13, 2014 17:16
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joyfulgirl129 posted:Oh my god, you too? And here I thought that my morbidly lazy boss was the only one who can't be arsed to literally push a button to put me up a grade. I've been waiting since June. By the way, you should follow this up with your boss. Since you already have a date in mind where you'll leave, you may as well try to nail him down to a timeline, and then follow up periodically to make sure it's still on track. The way your boss responds to this should tell you all you need to do. The unspoken implication is of course that you'll do exactly what you're planning if the promotion doesn't go through, and it shouldn't come as any surprise. But hey, imposing a deadline might actually get your boss off his rear end.
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Sep 13, 2014 23:58
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Sarcasmatron posted:Recovering pen hoarder checking in. Link please. Ok they're $30 a box from the manufacturer but I'm p sure I got a sweet discount for being a business acct http://pilotpen.us/brands/precise/precise-v5-v7/ Exclusive pen of Defenestration since 1999
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Sep 14, 2014 08:15
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Defenestration posted:Thankfully the best pens money can buy are like $14 a box Bull and poo poo. But Pilots are pretty sweet.
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Sep 14, 2014 08:31
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Solkanar512 posted:Bull and poo poo. But Pilots are pretty sweet.
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Sep 14, 2014 08:47
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Defenestration posted:What do I look like, some kind of lawyer? Well, you had a pen budget of $200, so...
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Sep 14, 2014 09:19
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Sundae posted:Good news, new hires! We just cut the pension plan so that our compensation structure "remains competitive within the industry." Hey, my company did the same thing when I was a new hire! But it's okay guys, we made up for it by improving the 401k match! By a whole whopping 1%! That makes up for it, right guys? e: Their justification was that most people who left ended up cashing out their 401k and they wanted to help us focus on retirement something something faaaaaaaart something something. Of course, the pension was 3% of our salary, and the 401k match was only increased by 1%. I'm not very good with numbers but................... Renegret fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 13:16
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Solkanar512 posted:Bull and poo poo. But Pilots are pretty sweet. I had an old Pelikan m800 I inherited from my dad. Built in West Germany. I loving left it on my desk one night instead of locking it up and the cleaning people jacked it. I'm still furious about it.
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Sep 14, 2014 14:50
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Solkanar512 posted:Bull and poo poo. But Pilots are pretty sweet. I sometimes feel a bit sad that I can't use a fountain pen - they just don't work for me anymore and I have to use a fine rollerball This is the only pen taht I can write quickly and legibly with. But it just doesn't look swish. 
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Sep 14, 2014 16:09
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Defenestration posted:Exclusive pen of Defenestration since 1999 Just making sure I wasn't missing anything. I recently discovered the Precise RT (retractable) Series, and those are my mains now.
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Sep 14, 2014 16:15
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On penchat, after I bought myself a cheap €20 parker fountain pen, my pen no longer got stolen. For some reason, a fountain pen is seen very personal where anything else such as the following that all disappeared from my desk: - a €40 mechanical pencil - several stainless steel pens that were very obvious not from the office supply closet - just about every pen I ever got from the office supply closet - anything that is a fineliner or rollerball or ballpoint - some neat faber castell pens that had no business being at my work desk. Mind you tho, this is over fifteen years and about as many companies. Every time I think "these here people can be trusted around my pens", I get robbed.
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Sep 14, 2014 16:16
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Keetron posted:Mind you tho, this is over fifteen years and about as many companies. Every time I think "these here people can be trusted around my pens", I get robbed. That sucks. I would never take a pen from someone. I'm terrible about not giving them back though. So much so, that I warn people when asking to borrow a pen. Worst for me is checking a new office supply closet on the way to/from the bathroom. Like a junkie going through a medicine cabinet.
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Sep 14, 2014 16:23
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Keetron posted:On penchat, after I bought myself a cheap €20 parker fountain pen, my pen no longer got stolen. Man, I hate people fondling stuff on my desk. I have one of these (that I bought for myself) with a little company tchotchke on it: http://www.amazon.com/Fascinations-Levitron-Revolution-Platform-Technology/dp/B003BWSW0E. It's magnetic (as you would expect) and people will CONSTANTLY come over and push it down or otherwise slam it around, making the platform SLAM down against the magnet base, which damages it. People have done this continually, including when I've been gone, where they'll slam it down and then leave it there, basically magnetically glued to the base (it's a huge pain in the rear end to get it to levitate again.) I had to put up a sign asking people not to touch it... which people then whined about to HR because "it's the company's desk, not [mine]". 
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Sep 14, 2014 16:25
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Bisty Q. posted:Man, I hate people fondling stuff on my desk. I have one of these (that I bought for myself) with a little company tchotchke on it: http://www.amazon.com/Fascinations-Levitron-Revolution-Platform-Technology/dp/B003BWSW0E. Yet another reason not to get anything like this and use it at work - sure, if I want to have something neat like that I'll get it for my own computer desk, but gently caress bringing it into work. And in the office I work in, it's not just the adult shitlords that have to be worried about, but their little shitlord kids that run around (sometimes unsupervised) and mess with everyone's stuff. We've already had someone's kids break a conference room PC, and said someone denied it was his kids that did it despite several people witnessing it, so keeping anything of value in a locked drawer or out of the office is the only way to make sure it doesn't get stolen or broken.
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Sep 14, 2014 17:42
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I'm lucky in that regard, we have to share work stations here, everyone leaves their personal belongings around the desks and for the most part everyone respects each other's personal belongings. Hell, some people leave food in the drawers and there has never been a complaint of people stealing other people's food. The only thing we'll just take without asking is cleaning wipes, but everyone's cool with that since it leads to a cleaner office which is always a good thing. I leave my mechanical keyboard in one of the drawers and nobody's ever touched it or used it without my permission. I'm generally cool with people using my keyboard, as long as their hands are clean and they don't get it all greasy and gross. ...This is all excluding the guy who leaves a fedora on my desk. He knows it bugs me so he goes out of his way to make sure I walk into work every morning with that stupid loving hat on my desk. I'm running out of ideas of ways to gently caress with it and places to hide it, it's become a game at this point. I don't think I'll ever top the picture of Nicolas Cage I wedged in there one day. e: Exception being the break room holy poo poo guys that's the second pot of coffee I've rescued from certain charcoaly destruction today. I'm starting to enjoy the smell of releasing extremely burnt coffee to the sweet, sweet release of the drain before it solidifies on the bottom of the pot. I think something's wrong with me. Renegret fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 17:57
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I do have something similar. In my open work area, everyone has a small wall (it goes up maybe 2.5 feet from the top of the desk) on the bottom right side of their workstation. This has rails on which you can clip trays for papers. Everyone but me has their inbox clipped to the top of the little wall. To me, this presents several problems. If I am sitting down, the inbox is then out of my reach (too high). Furthermore, for someone to put something there, they either have to lean over the wall on the other side and drop a page in, or come up behind me and reach, leaning over my entire body, to drop a page in. I put my inbox on the left side of my desk. On the desk. People can drop things in as they pass by and I can reach its contents without standing up. Nobody likes this. People are constantly coming over to my right side, leaning over me (practically making a tent of themselves over me) and then suddenly realizing my inbox is to my left. At first I was like, sure, people aren't used to this. I put up large prominent signs saying "Inbox is here"! and so forth. I've had people to the lean and then just drop the page on my desk when they don't see the inbox. I try to explain but people are generally just mad I didn't do what they were expecting. I just don't understand why everyone else tolerates the leaning and hasn't adopted my inbox placement method. God it's such a dumb thing to get mad over but aaarrrghhh. EDIT: Helpful infographic  My office is that setup copied many times over Xibanya fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 18:06
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Xibanya posted:I do have something similar. In my open work area, everyone has a small wall (it goes up maybe 2.5 feet from the top of the desk) on the bottom right side of their workstation. This has rails on which you can clip trays for papers. Everyone but me has their inbox clipped to the top of the little wall. People invading your personal space like that really piss me off, not just at work.
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Sep 14, 2014 18:11
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Lowness 72 posted:I had an old Pelikan m800 I inherited from my dad. Built in West Germany. I loving left it on my desk one night instead of locking it up and the cleaning people jacked it. I'm still furious about it. Holy poo poo, that really sucks  Xibanya posted:I just don't understand why everyone else tolerates the leaning and hasn't adopted my inbox placement method. I would go nuts in an environment like that. I mean really, why is it so difficult for them to understand that your in box is right where they can get to it?
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Sep 14, 2014 19:11
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Solkanar512 posted:Bull and poo poo. But Pilots are pretty sweet. Both of my TWSBIs skip like crazy. I chalked the first one up to being a preproduction model, but when the second one did the same thing, I gave up. My Lamy Vista is working out great, though.
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Sep 14, 2014 20:15
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The Berzerker posted:I got in trouble once for buying a small whiteboard and expensing it because I was supposed to buy it from some special vendor where small $10 whiteboards cost $90 I ordered a single message taking book one time from our normal office supply company for $15. I then found the exact same books at the dollar store for $2 each. I was absolutely floored. I bought 10 of them in case the dollar store ever stopped selling them.
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Sep 14, 2014 20:17
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Given how crappy my handwriting is, the small of amount of writing I do, and the fact that I lose things like pens easily, I haven't paid more than 'got it free from a business giving it away as advertising' for a pen in years.
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Sep 14, 2014 21:55
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Blue_monday posted:I ordered a single message taking book one time from our normal office supply company for $15. I then found the exact same books at the dollar store for $2 each. I was absolutely floored. I bought 10 of them in case the dollar store ever stopped selling them. This kind of stuff bothers the hell out of me - we've got a local supply company that we go through for all sorts of office supplies, including furniture. When we moved offices a few months ago to a bigger space, said company quoted us TWO types of chair - a lovely, cheap-feeling plastic chair with rock-hard foam backing and seat, and another shittier mesh-back chair with rock-hard foam seat. Both were limited with how they could be adjusted and were just all-around terrible. The cheap plastic/foam ones were around $250 each, and the mesh back ones were $300+ each. Nobody in the office wanted to use either chair, and suggestions were given to go to a couple local furniture places to check chairs there instead. We found better leather executive chairs that cost around $160 each, were WAY more comfortable, had a ton of adjustments and got immediate positive response from everyone. Someone saw a chair identical to the terrible plastic/foam chairs that the office supply company offered...they were around $60 a piece. 
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Sep 15, 2014 03:41
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