I work in a room with two people. Person 1 said to me all the stuff I wrote above. She thought nothing of saying it to a stranger (the assumption, I guess, being that I would think the same). Person 2 laughed along merrily. Also, I have come across numerous people in Glasgow who tell me they get scared in London because there are so many black people around. Again, the way they express themselves implies they feel no sense of shame whatsoever - they just don't see there's anything wrong in expressing obviously prejudiced opinions.
I'm not denying for a second that racism doesn't exist elsewhere (and I'm not forgetting that the survey found 3 in 4 Scots aren't racist) but this is the only place I've encountered bigots who have the expectation that my opinion must be the same as theirs.
― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 29 November 2002 13:17 (twenty-one years ago) link
― alix (alix), Friday, 29 November 2002 17:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
reply from me: "actually, on Friday we both determined that we had the wrong CD and would have to special order a new copy. On Monday."
reply from my boss: "There must have been some miscommunication here."
yeah, between your ears and your brain. moron!
― Dave M. (rotten03), Friday, 29 November 2002 17:56 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 29 November 2002 19:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 29 November 2002 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Friday, 29 November 2002 22:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
What the fuck?
― Ally (mlescaut), Saturday, 30 November 2002 06:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― luna (luna.c), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
Despite the fact that she's obviously still pregnant.
― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 02:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 02:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Nicole (Nicole), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 02:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 02:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
― fractal (fractal), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 03:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
However, I AM authorized to purchase them, however I want, whenever I want.
What does that even mean?
― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 03:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 03:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Maria (Maria), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 04:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
SUBJECT LINE: I gotta get outta this place...if it's the last thing I ever do (feel free to hum along.)
After a delightful morning spent discussing why someone:1. Shouldn't open a printer paperfeed drawer, while the printer is printing;2. Shouldn't send emails to everyone on their mailing lists about Church-related emails;3. Should let others know when they need the printer instead of deleting documents in the queue;4. Shouldn't tell someone "this is urgent" so they work really late to get it finished, when really, it isn't urgent at all and in fact, doesn't need to be done at all; and5. Shouldn't take someone else's lunch from the refrigerator and leave it on the counter to make room for "extra drinks in case we have visitors,"I have now experienced the conversation to top them all (and really, you have to laugh at this one. I did. Once I calmed down, imbibed chocolate and nicotine, and thought "well, at least it's not quantum physics?). So....here it is:
A Dialogue between "M" (yours truly) and "S" (Otherwise known as Scarett/Princess/Arch Nemesis/The Scarf Lady/etc.)S: Hey "M"!M: Yes?S: You know how to work that digital camera yet?M: Yeah, figured it out last week.S: How long does it take to get those photos developed?M: What?S: I need some photos really fast, so I can photocopy them and make notes on the back. And get duplicates too, in case they get messed-up. M: What? What pictures do you need taken?S: I need to you take pictures of my computer.M: Why?S: I need to know what's on my computer.M: (sigh) You are looking for a file?S: No, I need to know what is on my screen thing.M: (dawning awareness) You need screen captures?S: No, I need pictures of my computer.M: For....?S: I need to know what's on my screen, 'cause these instructions don't make sense and I want to make notes.M: Okay, then you need a picture of the information on your screen, that you can print and add notes to?S: Yes.M: Okay, we don't need the camera for that. We can just do screen captures. It's easy.(M walks over to other office, taking deep and soothing breathes all the while, and explains how to "CTRL+ALT+PrtScn" - runs into trouble with explanation of holding down all keys at the same time. Eventually resolved and screen is captured.)M: Now open Word and set the page to ?Landscape.?S: My computer won't do that.M: What? Yes it will.(M goes through brief discussion of "portrait" vs "landscape" and how to perform operation in Word. Discovers part of problem is that S doesn?t know how to open Word because the icon isn?t on her desktop.)M: Now just hit "Shift+Insert" and your screen shot will be inserted.M: No, you need to hold down both keys at the same time.M: I don't know, that's just the way the program is designed.M: Yeah, it is find of frustrating.M: Okay, now you have it. Just insert a new page for each of the next screen captures and then print the file.(M returns to own desk and gets back into rhythm of formatting proposal.)S: M! It isn't working. I want you to take the pictures for me.M: I don't have time to take the pictures right now, I have to get this back to _____.S: Well, I don't have the time to use the camera, so I guess this won't get done and _____ will be mad.M: Yeah, I guess ___ will be mad, but I'll explain the problem to him.S: Can't you do these thingys for me?M: No, not right now. I have to get this done.S: You know, it's your job to do this.M: No, actually it isn't. I am sorry, but I really can't do it right now. If I have time later I'll come over and see what we can do. In the meantime, why don't you look under the "Help" menu to see if those instructions are better.S: Oh, my computer doesn't have any "Help" on it. I keep telling ____ he needs to fix it, but he won't.
(M decides, for sake of sanity, to not try and figure out what that last comment means and returns to her editing, swearing all the while.) End of original email.
And here are additional interesting tidbits about ?S?:She claimed on her resume to be ?Microsoft Certified,? but was unable to explain what that meant;She wrote all of her correspondence in Excel, because she didn?t know how to open Word (the icon wasn?t on her desktop);When she came into work each morning, she made herself a pot of tea and sat in her cubicle reading household decorating magazines and drinking tea for the first two hours: and, best of allShe was once asked to provide a file that she had finished working on to another co-worker. The file was not on her hard drive for, as she explained, she ?didn?t want to fill it up with things? (and it was a 20 G HD!) File was eventually determined, by her, to be on a floppy. But floppy was blank when co-worker opened it. Eventually ?S? showed supervisor where she stored all of her floppys containing important info. She was attaching them to the metal parts of her cubicle with large magnets, so she ?could always find them.?
~ Laura (who is thankful that she can claim to be a happy rat, that abandoned the sinking ship in time to move to a much cushier and affluent ship, and is now ridiculously happy with things)
― LCD (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 05:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
I've met a few people who have done basic "computer literacy" courses at colleges and Adult Ed. places who do this. What seems to happen is: the college says "don't store your files on the hard drive [of our lab computers], use a floppy" and the person absorbs this without understanding *why* they're being told it.
These sort of courses always seem to produce people who can't do anything except exactly what was on the course, and then only if their computer is set up exactly like the college ones were. Hence, not being able to start Word if it doesn't have a desktop icon.
(of course, the other stuff shows that this person seems to be a fuckwit regardless of that)
― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 10:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
The ex-receptionist at my office once printed out an email so she could type it up in Word.
― Alfie (Alfie), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
it's a sappy day.
― g-kit (g-kit), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alfie (Alfie), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alfie (Alfie), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 12:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
1. "What does agriculture mean?"
2. "I was so annoyed. Someone threw themselves under my tube yesterday. People that do that must be mad."
3. Me: "Just tell them to put the web address in and it will take them straight into the site."
Her: "What address? Their address?"
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 12:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 13:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Wednesday, 15 January 2003 14:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g-kit (g-kit), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 14:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
Other things he did: worked at his cube standing up (making everyone around him very tense), unbuttoned his shirts halfway down his chest, commented on every phone conversation I had (work related or not), talked to himself, and played horrible CD-Rs of cabaret tunes he wrote and produced. I think the whole experience inoculated me against ever being annoyed by co-workers again.
― mike a (mike a), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 16:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
Unfortunately something this stupid is uttered in my office at least once a day...
― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 16 January 2003 03:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 January 2003 03:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 16 January 2003 03:56 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 January 2003 03:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― isadora (isadora), Thursday, 16 January 2003 04:15 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 16 January 2003 04:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 16 January 2003 23:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:09 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris V. (Chris V), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
An old japanese woman wearing a baby dress and pigtails jumping and down in front of me at the desk. I just came in. Please, let me wake up a bit first. Or am I still dreaming?
― Erik, Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sarah McLUsky (coco), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sarah MCLUsky (coco), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
i feel like i'm missing out
― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
There's nothing like a five minute meeting with your boss in which he tells you that you've basically got like two months to turn things around with a mouth full of Mike n' Ikes.
― hstencil, Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― cybele (cybele), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
big flat mole on the left side of his face with 9 really long and scraggly hairs growing out of it. He was always playing with them... twisting and pulling on them (but not pulling them out.) Very distracting....
― order some disorder, Wednesday, 2 April 2003 23:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
"Please tell me if you understand what I am saying, at the moment in the exqualifier there are only a 4 digit code, you append another 3 in front of them I don't know where, but doesn't matter anyway to sort out the letter in the front for the new code."
I assure you it makes only 1% more sense to me than it does to you.
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 3 April 2003 10:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 3 April 2003 10:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Nick A. (Nick A.), Thursday, 3 April 2003 11:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― toraneko (toraneko), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
is my 7th work anniversary tomorrow so i was going to post on the work message board along the lines of '7 years, eh? you get less for $crime'
looking up 7-year sentences here: https://www.thelawpages.com/court-cases/maximums.php and it gets really dark and nsfw really quickly
― koogs, Tuesday, 26 March 2024 19:30 (one month ago) link
for this project at work, to identify candidates for pilot groups, teams have to answer a questionnaire so we can tell if they will fit into the pilot as well as knowing what things we should focus on in training. we discovered that three of the teams omitted a shit-ton of information, so I went back to them weeks ago and listed all of the things to focus on in training, including the things they'd left out, and asked them point blank - are we missing anything?
today, I discover they failed to tell us about this script that their agents need to read on a call that quite honestly should have disqualified them from being part of this pilot group. now we're having to figure out if we can make it work or not.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 3 April 2024 19:36 (one month ago) link
So there's been an ongoing issue at my office that is relatively minor and probably petty, but opinions are very sharply divided and I'm wondering where folks from the outside land.
Short version - we have several student workers that work with us over the summer and throughout the year. Our leadership is constantly doing nice things for the student workers. Which, on the face of it, is totally great and a nice thing to do! They throw a monthly pizza party just for the student workers. They take them out to a big lunch three times a year beyond those. They bring in donuts for the student workers twice a month. On their birthdays, they decorate the student workers desks with balloons and give them gift cards.
All nice and decent things to do, right?
Well, here's the catch. They don't do any of those things for full time employees, ever. We are specifically excluded from the pizza parties and the donuts. The total number of pizza parties they've thrown for all employees in the five years I've been here? One, when a coworker retired. The number of times they've brought in donuts for the general office in five years? Never. The number of times a full time employee's birthday has been even acknowledged, much less celebrated? None. The number of times we get gift cards? Zero.
Opinions are sharply divided here - some folks are extremely bitter and vocal about it ("oh, look at what they get NOW"), others don't think it's a big deal at all.
You can probably sense that I lean more towards the former than the latter. Don't get me wrong, I realize student workers are very likely underpaid and under appreciated, so I'm glad we do nice things for them. However, I also feel that unless you are going to make even token gestures of appreciation to all employees, maybe don't make a big public deal about it? Like it shows that leadership is entirely capable of employee appreciation, they just choose not to do it for everyone.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 9 April 2024 13:42 (one month ago) link
I guess my question is do they get paid, cos all those things sound like the stuff people who don’t get paid get.
― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Tuesday, 9 April 2024 14:03 (one month ago) link
xp Something is ringing a bell here--is this the same employer who is weird about holiday gifts?
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 9 April 2024 14:08 (one month ago) link
gyac - oh yeah, that would have been good to include. they do get paid. in fact, since I just learned this yesterday, they get paid $1.50 above minimum wage. yeah, to be clear, if they weren't getting paid I would absolutely have no issue with any of that.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 9 April 2024 14:20 (one month ago) link
throw your own parties and don't invite the students or the people who organise their parties!
(our release manager was trying to get people interested in a curry in town one day next month. tumbleweeds... (same manager suggested we just divide the bill evenly the last time we were out when the juniors down my end of the table had specifically chosen the cheaper options))
― koogs, Tuesday, 9 April 2024 16:18 (one month ago) link
Good point koogs, though we tried that twice last year and it fizzled out. We requested just enough funds to cover ordering pizza for our group and got denied both times. Problem is, morale is so shot to hell right now that no one was willing to chip in their own money to pay for it, so.... here we are.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 9 April 2024 16:53 (one month ago) link
funny thing to me is that pizza parties felt like a punishment, outside of the 'food' part. I hate mixers at work. sometimes I'd grab the food and go back to my desk and hide lol. everybody at my company was always boring and stodgy and I'd feel like if I revealed 15% of my actual self they'd be alarmed.
but that's not the point, obv, the point is it helps to have consistency and be recognized in similar fashion as others. so i getcha!
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 9 April 2024 17:11 (one month ago) link
I spent 14 years bitching about the same boss and the last year bitching about the new owner who bought the business and Monday night, after my husb said “hey you hate this job why don’t you quit”, I finally quit. My hours were getting cut every few months and she is running the business into the ground (quite a feat, considering the old boss sucked and still managed - barely - to keep it going for 35+ years), struggling to make payroll (the numbers are the same as the last few years so I don’t know why), and honestly just gives off very shady vibes.
I feel like a weight is off my shoulders. Watching someone just fuck up the most basic things in running a business for 15yrs is exhausting. Offering workable and simple solutions and just being ignored, is exhausting.
― just1n3, Wednesday, 10 April 2024 07:43 (one month ago) link
Congrats! Youre gonna do great things!!
― brimstead, Wednesday, 10 April 2024 14:33 (one month ago) link
big congrats for pulling the trigger. never an easy decision to make but mental health is so important and also when you see troubling signs like that, always a good time to get out.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 10 April 2024 14:48 (one month ago) link
Congrats just1n3! No doubt you'll end up in a better situation and enjoy that weight off your shoulders!
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 10 April 2024 15:40 (one month ago) link
congrats that sounded rough.
in a moment of boredom yesterday i googled a project i left a job over to see how they got on..... only so badly that some of the players had to testify in front of a tribunal in Washington DC (another country) so.... gonna say that call was for the best. Not that i really should have wondered.
― maf you one two (maffew12), Wednesday, 10 April 2024 15:43 (one month ago) link
lol always fun to look back to see the mess you escaped
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 10 April 2024 16:01 (one month ago) link
I finally managed to extract myself from a horrible freelance ghostwriting project yesterday and man, that felt good. The client disappeared for an entire year, making it impossible to keep up any kind of creative workflow, and the subject matter was repellent anyway — I didn't even want to be writing the book. It would have made me about $10K by the end, but it was just depressing and awful and as fucked up as this is to say on a board where a lot of people are struggling, I didn't actually need the money.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Wednesday, 10 April 2024 16:07 (one month ago) link
each of our clients has a legally binding security document with us, outlining call security protocols. There are mandatory updates that must be made whenever one of our practices changes or new features rolled out. it's fairly easy to keep up with.
I access said document for a client today, one I actually brought on board in 2007-2008. Find the document is dated 2011, and has our prior company name/logo on it. Not a good start. Read further, full of references to features we no longer use and processes that we no longer follow. ugh.
I dig deeper, and find it was actually last updated in 2020, but the morons editing it ignored all version control protocols and never documented date of last update each time they updated the doc. Likewise, whomever was in charge never updated the document to the newest version in over 13 years.
so this legally binding document is essentially a useless pile of shit, that could get us in trouble if the client ever took legal action for any security-related disputes. tempted to send this Legal's way and wait for their screams.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 10 April 2024 21:10 (one month ago) link
Xps thanks everyone!
I’m signing up for Rover as my next career. I don’t have any skills that I could use to get into a “real” career - my job was mostly garment dyeing and managing an online store, and my prior jobs were waiting tables and retail (both of which I will do anything to avoid).
― just1n3, Wednesday, 10 April 2024 21:26 (one month ago) link
nice. walking pups is cool! i admit that i am actually okay with my life at the moment, tho it’s because the job that isn’t that great money-wise is really where i wanna be personally… which, yes, it’s the climbing gym. i am one of the oldest employees. i don’t care, it’s great, all my co-workers are super friendly and most of the people who come in to climb are friendly, too.
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Wednesday, 10 April 2024 23:24 (one month ago) link
plus, yknow, i just clean and climb and ring up clif bars
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Wednesday, 10 April 2024 23:25 (one month ago) link
I've spent most of my working life without or barely seeing my coworkers. It's an odd feeling.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Thursday, 11 April 2024 03:05 (one month ago) link
once again, my boss takes impromptu PTO and then in his OOO email, lists me as a backup on something I had zero involvement with, and he didn't speak to me once about before going on PTO. he's been given feedback on this and keeps doing it - fortunately in this case, unlike previous times, I'm unlikely to get a lot of questions and things are slower atm. but it's the principle, come on dude.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Thursday, 18 April 2024 14:00 (one month ago) link
I'm having a really hard time with my new(ish) boss. He's a highly competitive dude with a huge ego, which, whatever, I've dealt with that combo in managers before and while it isn't fun, it happens.
Problem is he also just loves mind games and divisiveness. One of his favorite moves is to make vague references to "winning" the "game" at work. Whenever one of us calls him on that bullshit and straight up asks what "game" he's talking about, he says things like, "well, if you don't even know what game you are playing, I can tell you right now you won't win". But even more common is telling each of us wildly different things in our individual one on one status meetings. Like two of us will have back-to-back meetings with him and he'll tell us both exact opposite facts/updates. I know he's not stupid enough to think we don't talk amongst each other and check in, so I can only assume it's some mind game he's got going on. He also turns everyfuckingthing negative, even undeniable good news he will shit on. Like just last week I had this exchange:
me: "Yeah, good news on that one, we actually wrapped it up three weeks ahead of schedule."
him: "That's disappointing, why wasn't it done four weeks early?"
me: laughing, thinking this is a joke, "well, I thought three weeks was pretty good, I'm happy with it"
him: "Don't be. I'm serious, work on that."
And I know he's done similar to all of his other staff. It's just so annoying and maddening. Like, what's the end game? Keeping us all unsettled and nervous? I guess mission accomplished, but jesus christ I do not have the time nor energy to figure out these games. I just want to do my job and go home at the end of the day.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 2 May 2024 18:38 (two weeks ago) link
I'd just be like, "I guess there's no incentive to finish things ahead of schedule!"
Or alternatively, just add at least one week to every timeline and you got your four weeks, buddy
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Thursday, 2 May 2024 19:17 (two weeks ago) link
I mean this is totally the "flair" discussion from Office Space, only I guess he saw that movie and sided with the Mike Judge boss character instead of realizing he was the butt of the joke and not Aniston.
― RICH BRIAN (Neanderthal), Thursday, 2 May 2024 19:21 (two weeks ago) link
I quit my job :)
She was not happy that I gave no notice - she thought I’d give them more time for a handover - and I just replied “well you’ve been cutting my hours for awhile now so I don’t think there’s much left to handover”. Her response was that the hour cutting was temporary because business was slow and that she wished I’d told her I needed more hours. Like, what? I’m not gonna be at the mercy of how badly you’re running the business at any given time.
Jon, your manager absolutely sucks. What a piece of shit.
― just1n3, Thursday, 2 May 2024 19:36 (two weeks ago) link
fuck yeah just1n3! congrats - it's funny how much they shrivel up when they realize they no longer have any power over you.
― RICH BRIAN (Neanderthal), Thursday, 2 May 2024 19:45 (two weeks ago) link
Thanks! I’m on vacation in Finland right now and this is the first time in yeeeears I haven’t had to check in on customer emails, answer staff texts, talk my boss through something, and have just been free. Except I’ve spent 90% of my time here sick 🫠
― just1n3, Thursday, 2 May 2024 20:57 (two weeks ago) link
That last bit is rough. Was in Germany a few months ago and was sick the entire time.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 2 May 2024 21:02 (two weeks ago) link
Yes way to go justin3!!
― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Friday, 3 May 2024 01:33 (two weeks ago) link
just1n3 even!! xo
worse than scheduling a meeting for 8:30 am, requiring me to log in earlier than usual - rescheduling it one minute before it was supposed to start.
― RICH BRIAN (Neanderthal), Friday, 3 May 2024 12:34 (two weeks ago) link
with one of my bosses, "can you do a quick peer review" means "can you write the entire last portion of this document for me, I did the rest but I got tired and didn't want to finish"
― RICH BRIAN (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 8 May 2024 21:27 (one week ago) link