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Can someone that works for a major company talk about bureaucracy? I have to deal with a major company all the time and the amount of steps we have to go through to get the smallest thing done is mindboggling. I usually have to go through 2-3 weeks of "we are escalating to the next level" just to get a drat email sent or a job scheduled.
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Apr 21, 2010 14:37
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I don't even think about work when I'm in the office. They'll rightsize my headcount in a heartbeat the moment that they think it'll add a penny to next quarter's bottom line, so I'm getting my retaliation in preemptively. Curiously, the more I slack off, the more they over-value my skills.
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Apr 21, 2010 14:38
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I work for a software development company that is of a decent size. In various forms I've worked here 14 of the last 15 years. After this length of time I could write my own Dilbert comic strip for the rest of my life and not run out of material. Office Space is pretty much a documentary of my life, minus Jennifer Aniston. At one point around 2001, when my company laid off 90% of its workers in some of the most horrible ways imaginable ("Hey guys, there's an emergency meeting in the cafeteria right now we need you for...InternetJunky you stay at your desk though"), I kind of hit a low point after which I honestly did not care any more. I would go into work, usually late, do nothing but surf the net, and leave after 5-6 hours. Each day I kept waiting to be called into the manager's office to be laid off or fired. I didn't care. After about 4 months of this, I finally got called into my manager's office. This is basically the gist of what occurred: Manager: "Don't tell anyone about this InternetJunky, but we're giving some key employees who we don't want to lose some stock options, and you've been chosen to receive 1000 shares. Congrats!" Me: .... wtf Manager: "Keep up the good work. I know it's tough with what's been going on." I lasted a few more months before I quit and formed my own contracting company, and a year later was contracting back with my original company for 2.5 times my original salary. I'm still with them. 
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Apr 21, 2010 14:41
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"But hey, at least you still have a job!" Is the new "Case of the Mondays." The validity of my bitching is somehow detracted from by the fact that I have something to bitch about? Go to hell, it's work and everyone bitches.
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Apr 21, 2010 14:43
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My manager continually forced us (only us 2) out of our shared office to have meetings in a meeting room about stuff that only related to us. He was a complete moron and it was obvious the only reason he was doing it was to fool himself into thinking he was a "professional". A hated that loving idiot. edit: it didnt even matter if was in the middle of doing something important. He'd make his little appointment in outlook, (smugly mentioning it as if he was some kind of computer whiz) and then drag me off to a meeting room where more often than not the meeting would only last 5 to 10 minutes. Kin fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Apr 21, 2010 |
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Apr 21, 2010 14:43
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If I start posting in this thread I will never stop. I've been stuck in the corporate world for over fifteen years now and for the most part it's been just like Office Space. Without Jennifer Aniston. Or buddies. Or the funny neighbor. Or a happy ending.
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Apr 21, 2010 14:49
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Oodles of Wootles posted:Can someone that works for a major company talk about bureaucracy? I have to deal with a major company all the time and the amount of steps we have to go through to get the smallest thing done is mindboggling. I usually have to go through 2-3 weeks of "we are escalating to the next level" just to get a drat email sent or a job scheduled. I've been "teamed" to death. There's a "team" for every god damned thing in my company. The whole organization that I live and breathe in (the IT branch of the corp) has been so ridiculously compartmentalized that it feels like nobody has any authority to do anything anymore. On top of that, they're dissolved and reformed without reason or notice so if you try to get something done that you haven't in a while, there's a smug email about how you need to be filling out such-and-such form you've never heard of and contacting such-and-such team you've never heard of. A lot of my complaints are probably somewhat at fault of the fact that I'm a remote IT admin in a company with a HUGE main office where all of the IT authority resides. I'm pretty sick of being treated like I'm a dick for not following a policy because I was never told.
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Apr 21, 2010 14:50
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Dick Trauma posted:If I start posting in this thread I will never stop. I've been stuck in the corporate world for over fifteen years now and for the most part it's been just like Office Space. Without Jennifer Aniston. Or buddies. Or the funny neighbor. Or a happy ending.
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Apr 21, 2010 14:50
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Dick Trauma posted:If I start posting in this thread I will never stop. I've been stuck in the corporate world for over fifteen years now and for the most part it's been just like Office Space. Without Jennifer Aniston. Or buddies. Or the funny neighbor. Or a happy ending. Do you get company BBQs? I don't even get that. 
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Apr 21, 2010 14:50
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After saying that I'd never work in corporate many, many times in college here I am managing an entire IT environment that will completely poo poo itself if you so much as fart near the server room. Our ideas of cost saving include contracting with a company that doesn't understand what the big deal is when our T1 service goes down for 18 hours. Also we elected to buy a bunch of USB hard drives for nightly backups, instead of just paying the 120 bucks for a new SCSI card for our tape drive because it was legacy (seriously) hardware. Every time I hear "Cost Savings" or "Business Intelligence" I cringe. At least I have an office 
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Apr 21, 2010 14:54
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Oodles of Wootles posted:Can someone that works for a major company talk about bureaucracy? I have to deal with a major company all the time and the amount of steps we have to go through to get the smallest thing done is mindboggling. I usually have to go through 2-3 weeks of "we are escalating to the next level" just to get a drat email sent or a job scheduled. I work for one of the most famous companies in the world and the bureaucracy goes so deep that it's literally impossible to get anything done. Someone 7 levels removed from actual processing listens to pitches and decides what vendors to use or what programs to implement, and down the implementation ladder everything gets incredibly hosed up and convoluted and neither the spirit nor intent of the enterprise is maintained. The only thing that keeps the system going is the fact that lower level employees pull their hair out to make it work. Tech problems take days to resolve because there are 800 different tech support aliases and none of them seem to do anything, and the systems are down more often than not. I work in SQL and the person I work for and who was in charge of building the SQL database we use (which contains data on 180 million businesses, mind you) did not even know how to write a stored procedure when they were put in charge of the project. All of my recommendations for the project were passed up until 8 months later when my boss decided they were his idea all along, at which point they were finally implemented and resulted in a massive improvement in processing. That said, I get a fat bonus package and am making a pretty sweet salary, which puts me in a bit of a self-loathing scenario. I would love to go back to volunteering or doing something more worthwhile, but this job ensures I get to keep driving my beamer and get to keep my sweet apartment. I have officially sold out. The only saving grace besides the salary is that I really do get a ton of commendations for the work I do. Companies, large or small, are full of idiots, and if you're intelligent you're going to do reasonably well, even if you're lazy like me and read SA all day.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:05
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Things you'll hear around the office every loving day: 1. Buckets, soup to nuts, and project analogies  : The solution needs to be soup to nuts and needs to cover every bucket. We're going to start this project off crawling, then bring it to where it's running.: I came up with a new word... bucketize.  2. Idiots with computers : It won't take! Why won't it take? It isn't taking! : Did you push the "Submit" button?: WHERE WOULD I BE WITHOUT YOU!  : I think SharePoint is down. Is it down? Can you check?: Have you not heard everyone around you complain? Pretty sure it's down.I work in corporate as a contractor, though, so we're basically the bastard children of the department. In fact, we all sit in this little "dugout" area instead of having our own cubes. I nicknamed it the cesspool since only contractors and consultants sit here. Our managers went so far as to put up a disco ball in the middle of it and hang streamers from the ceiling. I guess if I was an employee, I would be more entertained by the irony of the whole thing. We get managers coming in saying: : How's the disco party?!And we all have to pretend it's funny.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:07
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Hey Mr. IT guy, I need you to make a change to the production environment. Sure, submit your change in a ticket, and we will review it at the next change control board, and schedule it for implementation. 2 weeks go by, without a ticket, or further word on it. Hey, why hasn't that change I talked to you about at the bathroom urinal in place yet? The client wanted that to be live today, and I heard that it hasn't even been worked on yet..... This is when I get to be all smug, and ask, "What was the ticket number on that request, I'll look it up and see what the story is." It usually ends up in an emergency change control taking place in the middle of the day for some mundane change that shouldn't have been a problem to begin with, if they would have followed procedure. I tell these ignorant fucks over and over again how we are required by corporate policy to do changes to the production environment, and every week, it's the same bullshit. I mean is it too much to ask to go to your favorites, click the giant link named HELPDESK, and write down what you need from my department? Jesus Christ someone give me a gun.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:07
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I also forgot to mention that the company I work for is so big that it encourages competition between its own employees. At any given point in time there will be several vendors and internal groups vying for the same responsibilities, and they're given to the group that's hot at the moment, who will then outsource several parts of it to another group or vendor that's in their inner circle. In theory this is supposed to encourage productivity to go up, but in practice it's just as poisonous to the company as you'd expect. Company initiatives are less about making the process better and more about making a bigger splash and a better sales pitch, which ensures that we're constantly chasing project after project with a stupid rear end tagline and very little benefit to our clients. Despite being a massive corporate powerhouse several aspects of the work we do are 20 years behind the industry standard because tackling actual problems isn't glamourous. I've seen mom and pop companies who are using packaged products do a better job at industry critical operations than we do. SheepNameKiller fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Apr 21, 2010 |
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Apr 21, 2010 15:19
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SheepNameKiller posted:That said, I get a fat bonus package and am making a pretty sweet salary, which puts me in a bit of a self-loathing scenario.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:20
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GWBBQ posted:Although I have many of the same complaints as you guys, I'm a professional staff member at a major public university and I don't understand part of this. What the gently caress is a bonus? I do not work in IT anymore precisely for that reason, I do database marketing and list brokerage with a focus in SQL. I receive bonuses based on customer service surveys that clients fill out letting my boss know if they're happy. As much as I hate working in marketing and business in general, it's a ton better than when I had a job in IT. The only decent way to be employed in IT is to go into business for yourself or land a consulting gig. I know someone who makes well over six figures doing IT consulting work for a bunch of companies, which is a sweet gig if you don't mind the travel.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:24
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I'm somewhat relieved I got laid off last week. The constant office drama and walking on thin ice of having to prove why you need to exist within the company was tiring. I may go work a construction job with Lawrence.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:34
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quote:Things you'll hear around the office every loving day: What does this mean? I don't understand. 
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Apr 21, 2010 15:38
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Wagoneer posted:Things you'll hear around the office every loving day: I heard this in a meeting the other day: "Now, I have a question, and this is extremely tactical". Also, I'm working on putting together a trivia game for a conference. I was told that the questions should "Show how exciting our corporate brands really are".
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Apr 21, 2010 15:38
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To enhance our PROFESSIONAL IMAGE we are no longer allowed to have beverages of any kind at our desks. Not even water. I suppose that when a high-dollar client strolls through the area, a warm bottle of Diet Coke sitting on my desk might cause us to lose business. So, in just 4 months, they've banned smoking completely, eating at your desk, and drinking at your desk. And we also have to swipe our timecards/security cards when entering the lounge area, so our movements can be tracked. edit: and my 401k is down like 19%
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Apr 21, 2010 15:41
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The worst part about a corporate office is when you realize how much like high school it really is and how people don't really grow up.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:42
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Torka posted:What does this mean? I don't understand. I've heard this, and i'm pretty sure my interpretation is wrong, but in context it sounds like 'beginning to end'
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Apr 21, 2010 15:46
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BullProofMonk posted:Hey Mr. IT guy, I need you to make a change to the production environment. You couldn't take a dump without scheduling it three weeks in advance and preparing a client business impact statement on the business units which would be affected by either your ten minute absence from your desk or your presence in the washroom. You would also need to attach a decision log explaining why you chose to use the more expensive two-ply tissue. Finally, you would have to wait three more weeks after the dump has been taken to enter that time into the billing system, because the original SOW with the client didn't cover bathroom breaks and so there was no appropriate billing code. Your client account rep now must get an amended SOW from the customer and file it with the revenue recognition department to get a billing code; meanwhile some other department is breathing down your back as to why you have time "parked" with no billing code.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:51
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I telecommute. I rarely interact with anyone aside from short emails saying "Yeah, this is done" or "When's this needed by?". Yet I had to attend a day long sexual harassment class during one of the busiest times of the year. The hilariously awkward videos showing different types of harassment made it kinda funny. The crazy guy running the class who was super serious about the test portions did not. One of the videos was to show male on male harassment, and they kept showing this clip of a guy patting another guys butt. Slow motion. Black and White. Over and over... I also have to call in to meetings to be briefed on new projects, even though every project is the same. I know I'll never need to say a word on these calls. Usually they are scheduled for an hour, however they frequently go to 3+. It always starts the same, about 20 minutes of them trying to get their computer hooked up to the projector, them failing at it, and then calling an IT guy. Once they finally get that running, the person running the meeting suddenly realizes they have no idea what they meeting was about, have nothing prepared, and slowly goes through their stuff to try to piece together some sort of information. This usually results in them stammering, shuffling around papers, searching for a PDF on their laptop which isn't there, and repeating themselves over and over again. Did I mention every project is exactly the same and virtually nothing new or any changes between projects? Yep, nothing new. Yet they somehow still can't manage to have a meeting on something they've covered a dozen times already. I used to try to listen in, now i just put my phone on speaker in the kitchen and wait for the voices to stop.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:57
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Geez some of you guys have to put up with some unbelievable poo poo. I thought I hated MY job, but in retrospect I can wear pretty much whatever I want on most days without meetings, I show up to work late and leave late and nobody cares, the corporate bullshit and bureaucracy is at a minimum, my boss is cool and easily the most hard working person in the building and is completely unpretentious. The only things I really have to complain about are the woefully outdated IT, having to babysit old ladies who don't know how to use computers (I don't even work in IT), and not getting paid enough.
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Apr 21, 2010 15:57
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I work in the public sector. I recently had trouble getting an expense claim for a small amount processed. I phoned our HR department and was told that the reason for the delay was because I'd filled in the wrong form. Note that no-one actually thought to let me know until I phoned to enquire. Anyway, HR contact tells me that I need to get in touch with the contractors who deal with taxable expenses, and gives me a phone number. I call up the contractor, explain the situation and ask for a copy of the form. Contractor: I'm sorry, we don't have a copy of that form. You'll need to pull it off your department's intranet. Me: I'm afraid that form's not on our intranet as it's supposedly been superseded by an automated online process, only we can't access the new process because it doesn't work with our systems. They took the forms off without checking that everyone can use the new system. Contractor: it's on your intranet. Me: I'm really sorry, I know it's not. Do you have the number of someone who could give me a copy of the form? Contractor: Yes, try this number. He helpfully provided me withe the number of the HR contact I spoke to in the first place. ... Did I mention they're still running IE6?
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Apr 21, 2010 16:03
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Torka posted:What does this mean? I don't understand. Traditionally, soup comes first in a meal while nuts represents the desert (the last part). I had to look this up a few weeks ago. CuriousSymptoms posted:Did I mention they're still running IE6? Haha, we are, too. I also work for a company with tens of thousands of employees... all running IE6. Wagoneer fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Apr 21, 2010 |
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Apr 21, 2010 16:09
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Orgophlax posted:The worst part about a corporate office is when you realize how much like high school it really is and how people don't really grow up. High school? Feels more like middle school. Gossip gossip clique-y clique-y stupid stupid people. One of my co-workers, Teresa, brought in homemade pickles for any of us that wanted them. Margie, one of Teresa's teammates, kept the bottle of pickles on her desk for over a week, and one night, they disappeared. Margie believed that Teresa had stolen them (I have no idea why), so after Teresa left for the day, she rifled through Teresa's desk, took a bottle of pickles that she found, and threw them in the garbage. Seriously? Pickle theft? What makes this more ridiculous is this happened at a Bay St. law firm (known for high prices and high prestige in Toronto, Canada)
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Apr 21, 2010 16:13
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I work in a very strange office environment. Here I am right now, at my computer, gray cube walls and no windows even if I did get up and look over the walls. It is very office-like. I will likely have to write a memo today, and I will definitely have to update project timelines. I have attended three meetings today already, and it isn't even noon yet. I have just finished producing powerpoint slides for someone else's presentation. To my co-workers, this is work. This is important stuff. I am a scientist. When I am not stuck attending meetings where nothing useful happens, I abandon my cubicle, turn left and go through the decontamination room into my laboratory. I shut the door, put on headphones, and I do mad loving awesome poo poo. This awesome poo poo is apparently completely unimportant, and needs to be interrupted about four times a day so that I can go to meetings, sit there for 1-2 hours per meeting, and spend about two minutes explaining that I have nothing new to show them because I've had to spend 4-6 hours per day in meetings for the last six months. Every hour I spend stuck with people wearing suits is an hour I'm not spending with people wearing lab-coats. How the gently caress am I supposed to get anything done like that?
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Apr 21, 2010 16:21
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FogHelmut posted:This short cartoon sums up my life I have managed to sum up my companies IT project strategy; "I have no idea what I want, you IT guys can't ask me what I want, but I will know it when you give it to me without any input from me or the end users"
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Apr 21, 2010 16:21
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I used to work at a local art gallery for about a year. I had a number of duties, from filing to being an "icebreaker" during show openings to framing some works. I'm also an artist myself, but let me tell you, I hate the art world. It's a horribly pretentious world with a smattering of actually talented and humble people, and the rest are crude hacks with a sky-high sense of entitlement. The hoity-toityness also extended to many of the staff. I think 3 of the people I worked with were great, and the rest were just awful, sneering asskissers who were always at the ready to fawn all over whichever big-name artist was displaying their glossy turds in the gallery at the time. I was very vocal about which art was crap and it caused visibly horrified reactions in the jerkstaff, which was very satisfying. One of said pieces: A huge painting about 6'x8'. Well, not so much a painting, because it looked like a completely blank canvas. Upon asking the assistant curator what the hell it was supposed to be, I was told that it was a brilliant work, and actually was painted with large chunks of 3 different shades of white. The price tag to own this masterpiece? $30,000. I laughed and said it was garbage. She was speechless. Thankfully, my boss was one of the cool people I worked with. She went and told him what I had said and he also laughed and said, "I agree!" I was happy when I finally was able to get out of there. In some ways it was worse than retail, because lovely customers come and go, but lovely co-workers are always there.
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Apr 21, 2010 16:22
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Wagoneer posted:Traditionally, soup comes first in a meal while nuts represents the desert (the last part). I had to look this up a few weeks ago. Traditional in retard town maybe. Whoever thought of that phrase should be shot.
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Apr 21, 2010 16:22
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Sundae posted:I work in a very strange office environment.
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Apr 21, 2010 16:24
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Sundae posted:Meetings Remove the chairs in your meeting room. Meetings will magically shorten. Also, another thing you can do is charge $1 per meeting (if you're in the position to). People will often think twice. SheepNameKiller posted:Traditional in retard town maybe. Whoever thought of that phrase should be shot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soup_to_nuts
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Apr 21, 2010 16:25
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FogHelmut posted:This short cartoon sums up my life This video perfectly captures what business school was like for me. Also, it feels like I'm moving through all the "Reasons I no longer want to work in" threads. First retail, then into call center and now I just got hired at a national lab which I can only assume will be rife this kind of stuff. Any goons here with experience for working the business side of major labs? Are they anything like a corporate environment?
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Apr 21, 2010 16:26
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Recently our security management decided to start logging all chat logs through our internal chat client. This of course wasn't made terribly public to the rest of the users. Thanks to ancient policies the company has, HR has never been busier cleaning house. Oh, and the fact that the six member IT Help Desk 'team' that I'm on operates as two segmented units. We have 4 competent, team players that can get poo poo done. Then we have one person who has the lowest performance record but still manages to stay employed because our boss is a 'family man' and the slacker has kids. The other has been here since the dawn of time and hates everyone she sees.
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Apr 21, 2010 16:27
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Weasel managers: The whole " get everything in writing" thing just sucks. You can't really go on what your manager tells you to do anymore, if it's not in writing, you're hosed when the weasel gently caress in question throws you under a bus for telling you to do something that fucks something else up. But, of course if you question the weasel gently caress in the first place you get written up/fired. Perpetually offended backstabbers: You know. "those" people who you have to really watch your mouth around lest you end up in HR answering to a complaint. The c-level brownnoser: The person who should have been fired YEARS ago, but is still around because he/she is an out and out brownnose to the higherups. I'm talking a loving disgustingly obvious cleft presser here. Copy the world:Oh I know, If I send this email, then copy the guy's boss, his bosses's boss, the CEO, and the cleaning lady, my inane loving request that doesn't matter will get done faster!! You want some fun? Go work for a hospital in a state with at-will employment laws. Everything's gravy now since I left and went to a company that appears to give a gently caress, but you can ask anyone in SHSC how close I was to burning that place down.
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Apr 21, 2010 16:28
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Wagoneer posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soup_to_nuts I read the wikipedia article and it seems like it was a legitimately popular phrase 80 years ago, it still doesn't explain why the hell it's being used in 2010 in IT firms. Nuts aren't exactly the prototypical American dessert anymore.
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Apr 21, 2010 16:30
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Farking Bastage posted:Everything's gravy now since I left and went to a company that appears to give a gently caress, but you can ask anyone in SHSC how close I was to burning that place down. Was wondering when you'd show up... Another bad thing about my job is the insane amounts of downtime we have. My manager will of course be on your back the second you try and do anything that isn't mindlessly going through the company Intranet though. Hell, I was about one second for being written up because I had Youtube open in another tab to listen to some music.
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Apr 21, 2010 16:32
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SERPUS posted:To enhance our PROFESSIONAL IMAGE we are no longer allowed to have beverages of any kind at our desks. Not even water. I suppose that when a high-dollar client strolls through the area, a warm bottle of Diet Coke sitting on my desk might cause us to lose business. My roommate works for a company that has Pepsi on retainer. It's an extremely, extremely serious problem if you have any sort of Coke (or other competitor's) product on your desk when Pepsi people come for meetings.
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Apr 21, 2010 16:33
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