I’ve been really sick this week, and so have been working from home. Bronchitis, sinusitis, and conjunctivitis; no, I’m not joking. I’m one big walking itis bomb of doom, and my boss didn’t want me infecting everyone right before the holiday. Good for them, but I’m the one who will end up taking time without pay for the two days he refused to let me do anything.
Yesterday my big-boss called me at home at 8am. After determining that I still “sound awful,” he informed me he was putting me on speaker phone, because he “needs to find out what’s going on over in [my] area!”
Another guy comes on the phone and tells me he was in a meeting with Matty Dilbert* the other day, who, along with John Dilbert, basically pitched a little hissie fit claiming that I was causing work-stop issues because I was “not letting them communicate with [[Company X]] using the new [[communications system I manage]].” This is all behind my back, and to a group of other employees who may or may not know me, but there is my name being totally bad-mouthed by these pansy-assed little punks.
I inform my boss of the following facts:
- the server had crashed when the test version was released, and they had been re-indexing our database ever since
- the server was on lock-down until the new year; no new production releases can be made, per the lotus notes group here at work
- the only control over releases I have is once I have actually finished testing and authorize a move to production
- the test version was still being indexed, and hadn’t been released to me to test yet
- I HAD TOLD ALL OF THESE THINGS TO MATTY DILBERT ON MONDAY BEFORE I WENT HOME SICK
So did he just not listen to me? He showed up at my desk and interrupted me while I was on a telecon, with an employee from [[Company X]], to demand to know why they couldn’t use the system externally yet. I found it HIGHLY unprofessional that he would come over and essentially accuse me of not doing my job in front of an employee from another company, and wanted to wring his scrawny neck right there. I really don’t understand why I explained all this to him on Monday, and then at some point on Wednesday he was telling a bunch of people that I was holding things up for his group.
The phone call ended with me telling my boss that I quit working as communications manager. I just don’t want to deal with this bullshit anymore, and I have three other jobs to do that are more intellectually stimulating and don’t involve answering 10,000 emails a day asking dumb questions that they could answer themselves if they had either come to one of my training sessions, or read the packet of instructions I sent them. I just don’t see the point in continuing to work a job that makes me miserable; let them find someone new to do this job, and then they’ll really have something to complain about.
Another ridiculous work issue just came into my inbox; I’m going to copy and paste for your enjoyment (sanitized of course):
As many of you know there is an issue with the series of part numbers that [[partner company]] assigned to [[our company]] for parts in the [[engine program]]. The 10E type numbers are recognized within Microsoft Excel as a mathematical exponential function instead of a part number. Although this problem would appear to be solved by entering the numbers into Excel as a “text” field, it has been found that the software automatically reverts to a mathematical function when used/interrogated by other companion software. Since Microsoft Excel is used by both [[partner company]] and [[our company]] to review and manipulate BOM [bill of material] data, it has been decided to stop issuing 10E type number and issue 10G type numbers instead
Effective immediately, when you clone a part number for use in the [[engine program]] you will get a 10G type part number instead of a 10E type part number. You do not need to do anything different when cloning, but your part number will be different.
That’s right. We make jet engines. We employ the world’s best and brightest engineers (according to the banner hanging on the 2nd floor). But we have been foiled by Microsoft Excel! Due to an insufficiency in the way Excel handles data, we have had to change how we number engine parts.
Does anyone else find that absolutely ridiculous? I really can’t start talking about how misused I think Microsoft Excel is around here, or I just won’t stop, but I will say this: Microsoft Excel is not a database. Please stop using it as such.
* in case you hadn’t noticed, I change all engineer names to Something Dilbert.
Here’s one (sticking my hand up). Microsoft Excel is a great personal productivity tool and if you take the necessary precautions it also works for small work groups. But you shouldn’t use it to store your part lists or bills of material. I am not objective on this matter, because I work for a software company that also sells business applications for the Aerospace & Defense industries. In this business, there are a lot of three-letter abbreviations, such as ERP (Enterprise Resources Management) and PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), that are perfect to handle part numbers. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for our customers, we have a lot competitors that develop similar applications in every level of sophistication you want, so there is really no need to stick with Microsoft Excel. And if you have an integration using XML-based standards, these appliations can also talk with each other.
We do not store them in Excel, but people dump parts lists to Excel spread sheets ALL THE TIME. These Excel lists become “master” lists for people who are too lazy to look them up manually. We do have quite a few proprietary tools that folks are supposed to be using for this sort of thing, but it’s just so EASY to send a .xls around….
Yes, that’s understandable. Not wise, but understandable.
Johan Lont´s last blog post..jclont: The movie Three Days of the Condor (starring Robert Redford) was based on the novel Six Days of the Condor. Typical.
Hey PH , WRT to conference call noted above — you do know that guys never listen, right?
Merry Happy and all that!
Wayne Schulz´s last blog post..Sage MAS 90 2009 Tax Tables available now
I feel your pain. I train teachers on new technology… SIMPLE technology most of the time and I just want to stab myself in the eye.
Oh training…I wish I didn’t say “if you have any other questions, please email me” because some people have a tenancy to send multiple emails…a few minutes apart…each email containing a separate question…and all of them stupid.