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Orvin posted:How bad is it going to be if McKinsey and Company are coming around to advise the parent company on what appears to be a reorg? I work at a regulated utility that brought McKinsey and Company in to consult a few years ago. They decided the best course of action was to outsource all of IT and layoff all of the current workers. Luckily some heroic union action reversed the decision at the last moment. But things are still hosed around here. So, hope you have a strong union.
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Feb 27, 2023 20:24
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 01:00 |
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The only viable timesheet strategy is to be the most annoying motherfucker ever. The HR lady at the place I work at is awful to be around, and will consistently call you to lecture you about minor errors in your time sheet. poo poo like, "hey, your expense report says 2/xx/23, it's supposed to say 02/xx/2023". She is so goddamn annoying that I will do my timesheet perfectly, every time, to avoid having to speak with her.
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Feb 27, 2023 20:27
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Most of ours is done by shaming and having to get your boss's boss to sign off that you actually did work last month if you miss the deadline.
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Feb 27, 2023 20:31
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TotalLossBrain posted:Are these exempt roles? Do you need the timesheets to bill clients for hours worked? We have a new system that's largely automated, where they enter the timesheet, I review/approve and the system allocates the hours to various projects, and they get paid. By law we have to pay them for time worked. If they don't give me hours we are required to estimate the hours worked and pay them, have them fill out the timesheet, check how much they should have been paid, and either add or deduct from the next paycheque. This means organising meeting with the bookkeeper (who has a zillion other clients and has limited time to talk to me) and wasting a few hours loving about with the books to make it add up right. I'm already working overtime to keep this place up and running, so an upset like this can ruin my week and cost us a lot of money in missed funding opportunities. I need that money to hire admin support so I can claw back a small semblance of my sanity. Witholding pay is very illegal. Losing bonuses isn't illegal but it's a dick move. Cyrano4747 posted:Last time I was in that situation I would always send a reminder email to the whole team on Thursday around noon, making it clear that I didn't give a gently caress if they pre-filled out Friday, and if an emergency came up and they had to change that (call out sick because of a kid Friday morning or something) we could do that. A Festivus Miracle posted:The only viable timesheet strategy is to be the most annoying motherfucker ever. The HR lady at the place I work at is awful to be around, and will consistently call you to lecture you about minor errors in your time sheet. poo poo like, "hey, your expense report says 2/xx/23, it's supposed to say 02/xx/2023". She is so goddamn annoying that I will do my timesheet perfectly, every time, to avoid having to speak with her. Yeah this is part of the solution, but I REALLY need them to start using some initiative and doing things for themselves without me having to constantly hound them. They know how to set up reminders. It's not hard. Rewards dont work for some reason. I might try 'Not doing timesheets = cleaning the office bathroom' to start with. goatface posted:Most of ours is done by shaming and having to get your boss's boss to sign off that you actually did work last month if you miss the deadline. This is good but there's no one above me : /
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Feb 27, 2023 20:32
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I mean, if you really want to make it stick, put it in as a line item in your performance reviews. Define it as a work responsibility, and follow up on it as such.
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Feb 27, 2023 20:40
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zedprime posted:Preface this with a reminder that your baseline working relationship with an employer in the US is no one owes anyone anything. You should be treating each other with a mutual level of respect which means you should be in a union or continuously investigating other employers or lines of work just to make sure they aren't baseline screwing you for a variety of reasons including reorg lay offs. Thanks for the qualifications. It definitely sounds kinda like #2. I don’t particularly see a fire sale in the near future, but as your paragraph #1 states, it’s always possible. The companies definitely have a huge amount of middle and upper management bloat. There has been a lot of retirements/turnover at the IC level, so short of outsourcing even more than they currently do (at even higher contractor costs) I don’t see a direct headcount reduction. But potential for a lot of “we are going to cut all these unfilled roles”. Jen heir rick posted:I work at a regulated utility that brought McKinsey and Company in to consult a few years ago. They decided the best course of action was to outsource all of IT and layoff all of the current workers. Luckily some heroic union action reversed the decision at the last moment. But things are still hosed around here. So, hope you have a strong union. The physical union is really strong, and they care a lot about things that directly impact them. Outsourcing IT is probably not something they may care a huge deal about. So if that is what is decided, I expect things to get especially fun. One of my previous employers (another utility) would bounce between outsourcing IT to IBM and bringing it back internal every 3-5 years because of how much of a shitshow IBM IT would be.
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Feb 27, 2023 20:41
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Today I had to spend 2 hours explaining to my boss that two holes in a product that are supposed to be positioned within a certain tolerance of eachother are out of tolerance. And then I had to explain to him that the program he used to measure that tolerance is in fact wrong (because it doesn't measure the relative positions of these holes at all). He seemed to understand this at first but came back half hour later exclaiming that the part was in tolerance and that was that. I'm not sure if this batch is going to end up rejected but my guess is that I'm going to take the blame for it if it does, despite only being the one who found out about it.
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Feb 27, 2023 21:01
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Dance Officer posted:Today I had to spend 2 hours explaining to my boss that two holes in a product that are supposed to be positioned within a certain tolerance of eachother are out of tolerance. What's the worse that could happen
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Feb 27, 2023 21:12
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Domus posted:Was talking with my boss about rushing a repair. I told him, “I will have to talk to Howard and see if it’s possible.” Suddenly my boss’s boss comes up behind us and says “Of course it’s possible, we just have to work hard enough!”. For some reason my internal filter failed, and I just blurted out: “Howard can’t poop components”. He kind of paused and said “That’s true”. Here’s hoping I don’t get fired over that. Is this not how people talk at every job
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Feb 27, 2023 21:13
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I literally also work for a regulated utility that had McK come in, and they actually cooked up a whole new department and we went on a hiring frenzy to fill all the poo poo McK sold them. So who knows? Just always have your resume updated each quarter, have some money saved up, try to be competent and not work too hard.
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Feb 27, 2023 21:32
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Big important all employee meeting Friday: "We're working on fixing things, please be patient" Absolutely meaningless. "We are going to see every patient that walks in no matter how late they are for their appointment ." Oh so we're a walk in clinic now? You keep saying we're not, and yet we know you're 100% full of poo poo. I'm sure the docs will love this. That was literally the only information we got at this oh so important meeting. Today: "We're critically short of staff, but we're going to do annual competencies today! Also a mysterious cloak you have to cancel your scheduled doctor's appointment because we're so short! Sorry we only let you know 90 minutes ahead of time." I can't wait to quit. I'm building in a gap when I resign so I have a week or two to unravel my brain from this poo poo hole.
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Feb 27, 2023 21:53
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MrQwerty posted:working in an office/computer touching sounds like a loving nightmare I've gotten caustic in my right eye three times now working in brewing and that's still better than tracking billing hours in six-minute increments like I had to do in litigation support.
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Feb 27, 2023 21:55
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Best job I've ever had was working at a cafe/sandwich shop. If the pay was good I'd be happy baking and working grill forever. And while we're playing fantasyland if anyone asked me to take on a management position I'd throw knives at them.
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Feb 27, 2023 22:01
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Sorbus posted:WFH has ruined taking stuff from office for us as the supply shelf is not being maintained anymore and everything is paperless anyways except some special export documents or certs. They gave us accounts at Staples for the remote people. I get $200 a year for office supplies. If I need more or something expensive like a chair, my boss will sign off on it. The quality of pens at my desk are quite nice. And I love our office manager but drat if it isn't easier to order from Staples. But it lacks some of the joy of stealing them.
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Feb 27, 2023 22:11
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Thomamelas posted:They gave us accounts at Staples for the remote people. I get $200 a year for office supplies. If I need more or something expensive like a chair, my boss will sign off on it. The quality of pens at my desk are quite nice. And I love our office manager but drat if it isn't easier to order from Staples. But it lacks some of the joy of stealing them. Shoplift from Staples, same thing.
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Feb 27, 2023 23:27
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We have problem X. Solution Y has been proposed and almost universally agreed upon as the way forward. Sent this email almost verbatim: “Hey, here’s a new issue related to problem X, this is another reason to move on solution Y ASAP.” And got chided that I was being “too aggressive” in my communication. WHAT
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Feb 27, 2023 23:47
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Crackbone posted:We have problem X. Solution Y has been proposed and almost universally agreed upon as the way forward. tone it down a little, alright?
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Feb 27, 2023 23:51
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An old job I had sent me to a sensitivity course because I sent an email to the department that was just one sentence in all caps, "PLEASE PICK UP YOUR STUFF FROM <AREA> BEFORE 15:00"; several people had sent complaints about my agressive tone.
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Feb 28, 2023 00:00
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Biplane posted:An old job I had sent me to a sensitivity course because I sent an email to the department that was just one sentence in all caps, "PLEASE PICK UP YOUR STUFF FROM <AREA> BEFORE 15:00"; several people had sent complaints about my agressive tone. Well, why were you shouting?
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Feb 28, 2023 01:39
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Jen heir rick posted:I work at a regulated utility that brought McKinsey and Company in to consult a few years ago. They decided the best course of action was to outsource all of IT and layoff all of the current workers. Luckily some heroic union action reversed the decision at the last moment. But things are still hosed around here. So, hope you have a strong union. I, too, love being without power for hours because some MSP-tier dumbass disabled spanning tree because the switch they replaced wasn't working right, and the entire SCADA production network is down because someone plugged a switch into itself.
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Feb 28, 2023 01:49
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Biplane posted:An old job I had sent me to a sensitivity course because I sent an email to the department that was just one sentence in all caps, "PLEASE PICK UP YOUR STUFF FROM <AREA> BEFORE 15:00"; several people had sent complaints about my agressive tone. My manager told me last year or so that he's never had more complaints about one of his people than he's had about me. So I asked why he hadn't told me about this before, while mentally I'm trying to remember if my resume is up to date. He shrugged. "Because I looked into each one and you were right in each case. So I'd tell 'em 'Yeah, so? I would have told you the same poo poo if you'd asked me.'"
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Feb 28, 2023 01:52
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Biplane posted:PLEASE PICK UP YOUR STUFF FROM <AREA> BEFORE 15:00
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Feb 28, 2023 02:39
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Restaurant manager finally cleaned the mold up in the cold room. It only took a few months of badgering.
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Feb 28, 2023 04:28
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Project manager: Hey, you used the wrong project code on your timesheet last week. I changed the project code for [project] and didn't announce it but you should have known I'd changed it anyways. Also the old project code still comes up if you search for [project] because the old code is still active even though I should have closed it when I changed it. Fix your mistakes, morons!!
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Feb 28, 2023 05:05
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Cthulu Carl posted:My manager told me last year or so that he's never had more complaints about one of his people than he's had about me. So I asked why he hadn't told me about this before, while mentally I'm trying to remember if my resume is up to date. Carl, we have to have a serious discussion about the quality of your work! There's been a lot of discussion about your work around the office. Mark my words: you are THIS close.... to a promotion!
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Feb 28, 2023 05:34
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Buttchocks posted:Project manager: Hey, you used the wrong project code on your timesheet last week. I changed the project code for [project] and didn't announce it but you should have known I'd changed it anyways. Also the old project code still comes up if you search for [project] because the old code is still active even though I should have closed it when I changed it. Fix your mistakes, morons!! At my previous job, the timesheets were frozen after approval, so the way to fix this would be to create a new line with negative hours on the wrong project so it'd all sum up correctly at the end (this wasn't for OT or anything like that). I can just about hear the PM going "ok now I've closed the old code so you can't fix it".
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Feb 28, 2023 08:16
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Cyrano4747 posted:I know it annoyed the people who did them on time, but there were a couple of flakes that REALLY needed that prod, and they were also the ones who it became a four alarm fire if their paycheck was a few days late. Ah, the irony  "I can't bother to submit my timesheet when I'm told...what do you MEAN my paycheck will be delayed because of my own ignorance???"
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Feb 28, 2023 17:37
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Lol, my materials engineer is trying to deny doing additional work because he doesn't agree that drawing conclusions without data is a bad thing. My dude, I'm gonna run a train on you this afternoon in front of your boss. Only in this situation because we're at bus-factor 1 anyway.
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Feb 28, 2023 17:50
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Thee big boss had the admittedly good idea to increase pay for our entry level admins and mail room folks. The kinds of jobs for plucky 20 year olds with no job experience trying to elbow their way into a professional job, good benefits and a steady schedule. Rather than go about this in any sort of intelligent way, my boss decided that the easiest way to do this was to reclassify all entry level jobs as jobs typically for people with a college degree and three years experience in our narrow field. So, sort of a promotion? The pay went up from like $30k to $36k for these folks. To be clear, she could have given all the mail clerks and admins an actual promotion, or increased the pay for the mail clerk and admin job classification. Instead, it was slightly less paperwork to completely redefine the mail clerk job and admin as this other mid-level job that, because we hadn't used it in several years, had a pay range that was good for the mail clerks and admins. The practical consequence of this is that for the last year we have been able to hire exactly zero people for these jobs, because nobody with a college degree and three years of experience in a professional setting applies for a $36k/yr mail clerk job. And even if we wanted to, like, just ignore the qualification requirements and hire some more plucky 20 year olds, HR is being the picayune dictatorship they love being and refusing to even send us resumes. They're vastly short staffed as a result. God forbid we simply revert the change, or she just wave her magic wand to change the classification, but nonono, we must have many meetings to discuss this problem and various even stupider solutions. The solution so far is to lock the front door of the building. We have taped a sign to it saying that all mail deliveries - including legal process - and visitors need to go through the office on the other side of the city. I'm mostly pissed because I forgot my badge at home this morning, and there's nobody to hand out loaner badges. I couldn't even get in the front door to reach the desk where they used to give out loaners. BigHead fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Feb 28, 2023 |
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Feb 28, 2023 18:49
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Barudak posted:God loving dammit a third pillar to take over has hit the Barudak. Are they making you a patsy for something?
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Feb 28, 2023 20:26
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So, I signed the offer for the promotion to begin March 13th. That will definitely not be happening, and they're still arguing at director level about when I get to make the move. And, yes, it is partially due to the EXACT reasons I thought it would be. I don't have a huge issue with waiting two weeks more (beyond that I will be somewhat upset), but at this point, just decide and announce it. Management knows. Two of the team leads know. The team is starting to notice that I'm basically checked out. Can we stop the charade?
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Mar 2, 2023 02:10
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Time Doctor update: This program is so useless lol. I was working 15 minutes less than I was supposed to every day and when my boss called me out on it I just said "oh yeah I pause time doctor every now and then to get coffee or answer the door" and he was just like "oh okay" because it's too much hassle to actually do anything about it
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Mar 2, 2023 10:52
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Today I heard the words "execute a mindshift to maximize professional empowerment" and now I think my ears are bleeding.
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Mar 2, 2023 14:16
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That's some powerful bullshittery. I hope you replied "yes, but I think we need to consider letting people manage themselves more".
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Mar 2, 2023 14:41
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I almost farted in anger when a coworker was giving me some bad news this morning.
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Mar 2, 2023 14:41
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Samuel L. Hacksaw posted:I almost farted in anger when a coworker was giving me some bad news this morning. What was the news?
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Mar 2, 2023 14:54
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Outrail posted:What was the news? Baked bean shortage
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Mar 2, 2023 15:01
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I've been in this job for... nearly 2 years now (christ) and while largely it's fine there's been this problem bubbling under the surface which has now exploded and caused chaos everywhere. To give the short explanation, we have three delivery teams: a UI team based out of India, a middle layer team that's responsible for about 75% of the services in the software, and the infrastructure team that I work in that handles logging, reporting, auditing etc. (among a few other things). By the nature of the work my team does, when we "release" something it usually needs work by the middle layer team to actually... do something, and sometimes the UI team as well (though that's less important). Ever since I've joined there's been a growing backlog of work we've completely and they're not able to pick up and take over the line. Initially they just didn't come to release meetings and refused to acknowledge we had completed it, but then they got forced to attend and give confirmation that they needed to do something. They've then been stuck trying to release a major version of our software due to performance issues for... six months. The whole time we've been building a bigger and bigger backlog of work. The issue we have now is that we've run out of work. There's basically nothing else we can do because we know it will sit on a shelf for 6-8 months for them to do anything about it, and the project managers aren't willing to give us more stuff to do because they know it won't get delivered for half a year. We've had to scramble like hell to fill time doing odd jobs, things that can be released independently, or working on new long-term projects. The obvious solution is for our team to be allowed to do that middle layer (we have the skills and knowledge) but for some reason nobody's willing to sign off on that. So now we're just... plodding along, while the other team are absolutely manic with work. It was a problem I foresaw happening when I joined, that everyone acknowledged, and nobody did anything about it. Dumb poo poo all round.
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Mar 2, 2023 15:19
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EvilHawk posted:So now we're just... plodding along, while the other team are absolutely manic with work. It was a problem I foresaw happening when I joined, that everyone acknowledged, and nobody did anything about it. Dumb poo poo all round. Working as intended etc.
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Mar 2, 2023 15:27
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More about joys of traveling for work. 6am flight this morning. Arrive at 4:45 with oversized luggage. Counter won't check my bags that late. Won't put me on the scheduled flight and bags on later flight. Ok, delay 24 hours. Destination hotel app won't let me modify. Call hotel (int'l call) to bump check in by a day. "We don't have any more rooms available" - yes you do I'm booked for 2 weeks, just change the check in date, same departure. "No we can't do that". Fine, just leave it as-is and I'll pay for the empty room tonight. "Sir if you are a no-show we'll charge you the night AND cancel the reservation" It is midnight hotel time so I'm guessing I got the night auditor with limited options. I can check in with the hotel app and get a digital key so I'll try that. In the meantime I find an airport hotel to crash tonight. My office is already emailing me freaking out about another $150/night charge on a half-million budget. This bodes well for the next 2 weeks. I'm going back to bed.
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