postings of a professional redhead » work

Work Termination Date

Sidney — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:24:20 +0000

> ______________________________________________
> From: Prick, Boss O

> Sent: Monday, December 07, 2009 7:10 AM
> To: Manmeat, Jimmy E ; Paperhurts, Sidney
> Cc: Sweetheart, HR ; Paperazzi, Vince P
> Subject: The Man & Big Brother, Inc. Work Termination Date
> Importance: High
>
> Good Morning,
>
> Your last day of work with The Man & Big Brother, Inc. is 12/23/09.
> I have sent your resumes out with no responses as of the e-mail.
> Please schedule your exit interview with HR Sweetheart.
>
> Boss O Prick
> The Man & Big Brother, Inc. Group Leader
>

Not even a THANK YOU for the five years I have worked there. Or a “good luck in future endeavors.” How did this assmonkey become a manager? His people skills are akin to a bull in a…well, anyway.

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

Sidney — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:05:13 +0000

I promised a post on the Epic Fail of Today…well, call me a gal of her word. Word.

Today we had a FIRE DRILL. We have these often enough where I work; combine a ton of highly flammable chemicals/gasses/metals/machines/jet engines/etc. with humans and, well…you have to be safe, right? They are, for the most part, unannounced.

Todays was different. Todays was announced, warned, and…well, instructions were given.

I will paraphrase heavily in my Normal Blogitization Style:

In the event of an fire employees are required to notify everyone “by using a FIRE ALARM BOX” in ya know…the manner common sense dictates.
Know how to get the fuck out of the building; you’re next to them skunk rat boys, and they have tons of “highly flammable” substances laying around, ya know!
SHUT DOWN ALL NON-ESSENTIAL EQUIPMENT INCLUDING YOUR COMPUTER PRIOR TO EVACUATING IN CASE OF A FIRE (seriously? wut?the?fuck?)
QUICKLY HIDE/SECURE ALL EXPORT/PROPRIETARY/TOP-SECRET DATA PRIOR TO LEAVING THE BUILDING. “Remember: you MUST quickly secure all confidential information.”
“Proceed to the nearest safe exit in an orderly manner. DO NOT rush, push, stop, or attempt to retrieve personal items that are not in your immediate area. (Coats/hats hanging on a remote rack, Etc.)”
Go to ::whatever meeting area you are supposed to know you are supposed to meet at that is not contained in this email:: immediately after leaving your desk.
DO NOT attempt to reenter the building until Big Officials In Uniforms inform you it is acceptable to do so.
And then yet even more bullet points on not attempting to “go against the flow” of people exiting in order to retrieve personal belongings.

So today we practiced what we already know:

In case of fire we should walk like baaing sheep out of the building, but only after we have 1a. secured all important data 1b. shut down computers, fans, lights, etc. 1c. left behind all personal belongings
Meet at some (unknown, predetermined) location with no personal belongings and
Hope it is not a real fire since if it is, we’re not getting in our cars to drive home.

I love my job. So much, I cheer and rejoice that I am applying at Other Companies in The Man & Big Brother, Inc. Family.

…no, really, I am. What else am I going to do? My skill set is very specific.

Well, the economy finally hit me

Sidney — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:48:52 +0000

I found out I might be laid off last week. I thought at first I was in shock, since I had no reaction; but after a few days, when the “yes, The Man and Big Brother, Inc. are cutting outsource employees from our company by 50% next year and you’re part of that 50%” statement was made I realized that I’m sort of glad – relieved, even. I mean, I’m not saying the prospect of being jobless, searching for a new job, and collecting unemployment appeals to me – but the thought that finally change has come and I can’t ignore it has made me feel free. I’ve been less than an advocate for Connecticut since I ended up here, and this is my opportunity to get the hell out of this state. Yes, I’m comfortable, yes I own my condo (and how I hate the condo association!), yes I have a life here and friends here and my parents are here – but I’m 28 – and I want to live somewhere I truly ENJOY. I want a job that I ENJOY, that CHALLENGES me, and especially where there is room for me to ADVANCE and CONTINUE MY EDUCATION, since sadly that is not the case here; I’m as high as I can go until people start kicking the bucket. I also never want to be an outsource/contract employee Ever Again. I will miss the winter (as I’m primarilly job searching in FL, SF, LV, OR, & DC) but I will also NOT miss the winter. My eyes are mostly set on DC, FL, and LV, but we shall see. Wherever I go, I do plan on finally buying that sailboat I’ve wanted since I was a teenager.

Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency for me

Sidney — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:33:59 +0000

This is a common theme for me, and I wonder how often other people deal with this sort of thing. I’m at the point where I’m tired of constantly accommodating people’s lack of planning, and I refuse to hurry for any deadlines other than my own now.

Current scenario:
Dude needs his group added to this communications system I manage (with the help of those monkey-trog douche-nozzles in the Lotus Notes group). In order to do this, I need a list of information from him, which I provided to him a couple months ago when he first contacted me inquiring about the system. I never heard back from him, and figured since he was sending technical data to Japan, that he had decided to just go through The Program Office rather than set up his own system and have to worry about export and proprietary, etc. Fast-forward to three weeks ago when I’m out with ineedtosleepinandplayvideogamesitis (aka was enjoying a flex time-induced three day weekend), of course this is the day he emails me saying he needs to get this set up RIGHT [THE FUCK] NOW because The Program Office refuses to process his shit for him, insisting he go through his own organization.

Ready?

SO I get a call on my cell phone from a coworker telling me we have a dude who is loosing his shit because I’m out today, so I trudge my cranky ass into work to meet with this guy because IT’S SUCH A FUCKING EMERGENCY AND HE JUST HAS TO GET THIS DATA TO JAPAN TODAY even though it’s FRIDAY and they are probably all asleep in bed in their time zone (where I wanted to be). And what happens?

The motherfucker stands me up. I go in ON MY DAY OFF, with NO hope of getting overtime, to appease this toolbag, and HE STANDS ME UP.

Well, fuck that. Anyway, I think he knows that he’s in the shit house, because the FOLLOWING week this dude’s BOSS contacts me to set up a meeting about the system.

Ready?

Dude’s Boss sent me a meeting notice for a 10:30AM meeting Friday morning. He sent the meeting notice at 9:25AM Friday morning. I was (yes! you know it!) on a THREE DAY WEEKEND, but had come in for a minute at lunch time to sign some papers for HR so I checked my email and saw the meeting notice, so sent him back a “I suggest this other time to meet” notice for the following Monday before going home. He gets it, gets frustrated, and proceeds to call/email me about a dozen times over the rest of the day demanding I meet with him that day.

I get in on Monday, explain to him “dude’s boss, I was on vacation on Friday, and you sent me the meeting notice with an hour heads up anyway, so let’s meet this week” but of course he’s up in Canadia on business for the week so I tell him “look, you just need to send me this information, the list of information I provided to dude months ago, here is the email I sent him, here is a presentation explaining why I need this, and you can just email me this information and I will have this set up when you get back from Canadia.” He ignores my email, comes back, and insists on an in-person meeting.

So we have our in-person meeting, during which I bring a print out of the emails and presentation I had already sent him and say “so this is what I want,” and he says “that’s it? that’s all you need?”

//headdesk

RTFQ. READ YOUR FUCKING EMAIL, PEOPLE.

So I tell this guy you get me this information, and I will request new user groups from the Lotus Notes group, who take “a few days” to get new groups set up in the system, and he says “oh, that’s all? great! so we’ll be cooking next week!” and everything seems copasetic. We met on Monday, he sent me his information on Wednesday, and I put in the request that afternoon for the new groups.

The following day I get this email from him:

“This is a list that is needed to support my Team’s activities I expect that you may receive similar requests from other teams but if possible I would you to put this into the [system] ASAP. I am late in delivering on my action item commitments and would therefore like to get the system updated quickly to allow me to catch up.”

I ignore this email because, let’s be honest, a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

Today I get this email from him:

“Where do we stand on this? I tried calling you but you were not at your desk. I will try again later.

I would like to get this update completed today or tomorrow. The current configuration of the system does not meet our needs for the [some] program (as I think you discussed with Dude’s Boss) and I am anxious to get [my technical data] to [Japan] early this week.”

I respond:

“As I said to your boss, it takes a few days to get the groups requested. I requested them after our meeting last week, and am waiting for them to be applied to the database. I will let you know when it is ready.”

He responds:

“Who does this I was under the impression that you did it. Is there someone else I need to lean on to get this done faster?”

I respond:

“The Lotus Notes group has to create the groups and attach them to a database. There is no getting it faster, it just takes the time it takes due to how our lotus notes databases are set up here.”

He responds, CCing SomeDude from IT he’s friends with:

“ITDude: Can you expedite this please? -Dude”

REALLY!? I’m done helping him. I am leaving early and I don’t give a shit if he sends me a dozen more emails today. I FWD this entire ridiculous email chain to the actual IT people I am dealing with (not the random ITDude he emailed) just so they are aware someone is probably going to bitch at them at some point in the future over something they have no control over, and it’s not my fault.

//SIGH

Work Rant

Sidney — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:57:28 +0000

I actually had to say the following to someone this week: “Please do not do that [fart] in my face. If you need to do that [yes, fart], please remove yourself to the bathroom, where that [he was doing it in my face!!] is considered appropriate. Or at least walk a few feet away from me to be polite.”

“Yeah, she’s a GIRL! A GIRL is the new BOSS!” – my coworkers amazement that one of the new model managers is actually a WOMAN. My response was “oh, is she younger than I am? When you refer to a professional working woman as I girl, I picture some little tween sitting in a cube wearing her mother’s clothes.”

“God, someone needs to give him a blow job or something, he’s wound so tight. Any volunteers?” – said at the lunch table by a very high-level manager. I was, of course, the only woman at the table, and everyone looked at me and giggled.

“You’re not allowed to complain about a colonoscopy in front of me. I’ve had to have my vagina cranked open and examined every year since I was 18! You don’t have anything to complain about!” – ok, I said this one at the lunch table, and am still a little shocked that I said such a thing. Really though, I’m so tired of all the guys who are turning 50 whining and moaning about this procedure, especially in front of my boss who had cancer down there and gets really upset when they talk about skipping their check-ups. Anyway, we have a saying, “What goes on at the lunch table, stays at the lunch table.”

How hard is it to spell my name correctly? When you send an email, you see the following:

Why is it then I get emails with my name spelled “Sydney,” “Syndy,” “Syndney,” and – horror of horrors – “Cyndy/ie?!?” Learn to read, people!

OMGWTFBBQ MICROSOFT YOU SUCK. Why did you decide that when copying and pasting data into cells in Excel they should attempt to retain their original formatting!? Because I have to say – NO ONE wants them to retain their original formatting. We just want to alt+tab ctrl+p alt+tab ctrl+c alt+tab etc., but we can’t do that because we have to click on the stupid fucking input bar so whatever is in our paste buffer is pasted as plain fucking text. You seriously screwed the pooch on this one, AMONG OTHERS…don’t even get me started on your automatic text formatting that tries to turn my parameter names into exponents, ARGH.

DO NOT forward me non-work related emails, ESPECIALLY if you’re my boss! It is just completely inappropriate to forward anything with a prayer, “advice” on how to save gas/money/baby seals, or any stupid/incorrect histrionic warning that ends up on snopes the next day debunked as a total farce.

Seriously learn to listen. If I tell you “we cannot have x, y, or z until the IT department releases a, b, and c to us” do not then go to your boss and say, “hey, paperhurts is holding up our ability to have x, y, or z!” I do not work in the IT department, and I’m pretty sure the Lotus Notes group has an office in Hells annex. It would explain why they never answer their phone and only randomly respond to email.

Learn to read (part deux!)!!!! If the title of one powerpoint slide says:

Requesting a Lotus Notes Domino Web ID

And the title of another powerpoint slide says:

Requesting access to [Proprietary System of The Man and Big Brother, Inc.]

Do NOT do the former, and then get pissed when it doesn’t achieve the latter! You sent a request for access to a system that I OWN to the Lotus Notes group – we’re not even sure if they exist, or it’s just one drunk monkey tapping on keys who occasionally gets a request correct – so don’t be surprised/pissed off/complain to your boss that “access to [Proprietary System of The Man and Big Brother, Inc. is taking too long!” while pointing your non-literate finger at myself. I just might accidentally add you to every standard distribution list, and see you complain later when you’re receiving 400+ emails/day on every single entry in that database!

Safety first!

Sidney — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:39:01 +0000

The Man & Big Brother, Inc. strives to maintain a safe workplace…objectives: eliminate injury; reduce pollutants; conserve natural resources; yadda yadda.

Every year in order to get a new sticker on my badge for access to the plant, I have to take a refresher EHS class. What’s EHS you might ask? Environmental Health & Safety. Now, I do think it is important to know what to do if someone falls off a lift, or loses a hand in a machine, or spills caustic acid all over the shop floor…but the questions I have to answer in order to “pass” the test are a little ridiculous.

Some include (sanitized for obvious reasons):

Which of the following are not permitted at The Man & Big Brother, Inc. facilities?

Horseplay

Fighting

Gambling

Stealing (oh yeah? tell that to the jerk who stole my redbull from the fridge)

All of the above

Access shall not be blocked to emergency equipment, exits, telephones, safety equipment, fire extinguishers, and other fire equipment.

True

False

In which of the following areas are safety glasses NOT required? (ooh, trick question!)

Office work area where employees are using tools

All shop areas

Outdoor work areas where employees are using tools

Cafeteria while eating

Which of the following may occur if you are found to have violated an EHS rule?

A violation report will be filed

You could be suspended

Your supervisor will not be happy with you

All of the above

You can see these are real brain-taxing questions. I especially love the answer “your supervisor will not be happy with you,” but it’s true; the few times I’ve violated some policy (such as forgetting to input my time at the end of the day) my supervisor has, indeed, not been happy with me. The safety handbook also specifically mentions we must “communicate in English with the level of proficiency necessary to ensure our safety and the safety of others.” You don’t need to be able to communicate about anything else in English; just know how to say “excuse me sir, but you really should be wearing a hardhat and safety glasses on that forklift!” or “beware of this spill, it will make the skin of your feet fall off and your children look like lobsters!”

sick time woes

Sidney — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:04:33 +0000

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.

Common Sense…Engineers Has It

Sidney — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:52:22 +0000

Yesterday I was commiserating with my DBA about the lack of common sense everyone in my building seems to have. I mean, we’re brilliant here in The Engineering Building, but some of the stuff that happens just makes you wonder.

Take for example John Dilbert, who has been complaining to facilities for weeks that his area is too cold. Facilities of course comes out on the weekend, verifies the heat/thermostat work, and probably laugh at the guy for being such a pussy about the temperature. In he comes Monday morning, and again by the end of the day his entire area is freezing. He and the seven other guys in his area are calling facilities all the time trying to figure out what’s going on, and finally facilities comes out during the work day to check out the issue. You know what they found? Yeah. This genius has been hanging his coat over the thermostat when he comes into work in the morning. So the coat was “tricking” the thermostat into thinking it was much, much warmer than it actually was…I just can’t believe no one thought to check the thermostat at all, at any time, before calling facilities – if they had ONCE looked at the thermostat, they would have realized that idiot had his coat over the damn thing.

Out of curiocity, how many countries can you name in five minutes? I got 79 guessed, 116 remaining. If I had known how to actually spell some of them, I would have gotten a few more. I couldn’t spell Uruguay, Azerbaijan, Luxembourg or Philippines, among others. I’ll bet my mother gets at least 95%, Catherine too.

L2Read, or RTFQ part 2

Sidney — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:00:55 +0000

Back in this post I mention some of the annoying habits people have of not reading their email. I think it’s becoming a pandemic, and it’s getting worse. Reading email apparently takes too much time so it’s easier for people to just call me and essentially ask, “can you please tell me what you emailed me earlier?”

I spend at least an hour a day – probably more like two – answering the phone to questions that people wouldn’t have to ask me if they would just read the fucking emails that I send them. I’m at the point where I want to start refusing to answer questions – I’ve already made it even harder for folks to leave their 20-minute rambling voicemails on my mailbox by putting up an extended absence greeting that states “please do not leave a voicemail, please send me an email so I have your request and information in writing.”

I also hate it when I tell people, “well, I sent you this last week…” and they respond all innocent-like, acting as though they’ve never heard of email before; “oh, you did?? REALLY?? Golly gee whiz, could you send that to me again, I must not have received it! It must have gotten eaten up by the email servers, ha-ha!”

As someone who has run her own server – web and email – I’d like to say that it is NEVER eaten by the email servers, especially at an enterprise-sized company with who knows how many backup email servers and archival systems in place.

My new policy is this: if I am sending something to you for the third or more time, I will up who your direct supervisor is in the company directory and CC that person. And I always make sure to forward the forwarded email, so both your boss and you can see I have already sent it to you X amount of times.

Bitchy? I really don’t care. Learn to read, and stop wasting my time. Aren’t engineers supposed to be smart?

Academia just isn’t my bag, baby

Sidney — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:06:33 +0000

You’ll notice in my blogroll that I have a few medical-type blogs that I read (they’re great reads, check them out). I’m actually fascinated by medicine, and my family is full of medical-type people; my mother and aunt (father’s little sis) are RNs, my aunt (mother’s little sis) is a pediatric intensivist (her 2nd career after she was a hot-shot lawyer in L.A.), and her partner is an APRN (ob/gyn). To this day my family regularly asks me if I would please-please-please consider going to medical school – despite having a very successful career in engineering, and a just-starting career in wedding photography. Their reason for asking me still, even though I already have a career? “Because if some of these idiots I work with can be doctors, you could do it blindfolded and with your hands tied behind your back” – attribute this to all four medical field relatives, as they have all said this to me at one point or another. It’s not just medical school though; regularly from everyone in my family, some friends, and even old teachers, people are always suggesting some form of further education I should be seeking.

My father is the only person who is truly psyched about my chosen career – maybe because ohhh…we happen to work at the same place, and he gets to introduce me to his work friends all the time. “This is my daughter, Sidney! She’s the [blahblahblah] that they’re always talking about in the 8:30 meeting!” and of course, his chest puffs out with pride when he brags about me to people at work. (How I feel about being introduced to people first as his daughter and second with my title is probably fodder for an entire other post, actually…)

I wonder about this dichotomy, and why people seem so passionate about me going back to school. My mother is especially guilty of this; when I tell her “violence in movies makes my legs get weak and my stomach flip-flop, how the hell am I going to handle someone whose guts are spilling out of their body?” she switches tactics, reminding me of my stellar LSAT scores. “You could go to law school! They have a part-time program at UCONN! And those LSATs could easily get you into Yale!” Nevermind that I do not want to pay for either UCONN or Yale law school, not that my N.mumble GPA in undergrad would get me acceptance to either, anyway. My p.i. aunt is the same way; “you know, you really should at least go back and get an M.B.A. if you’re going to stay in the engineering field. You already hit the glass ceiling, you said so yourself.” My elementary school gifted teacher, who is now 89-years old and has recently converted to some sort of monkhood cult in the catholic church (the regular church was just “too liberal” for her) also brings this up during our bi-weekly phone conversations. “When are you going to medical school? You have the brains for it, you know. Your mother always wanted you to be a doctor.”

You can imagine my disgust when I caught my mother and her sister talking on the phone about my baby cousins (future, hypothetical seeing as they are 6 and 7 years old) SAT scores, and how they would affect into which colleges they would gain admission.

“I see now why my cousin Erin always told everyone she wanted to drive a dump truck! You guys put too much pressure on everyone! You know not everyone wants to be an over-achieving school nerd!*”

* My mother went to college for about 20 years, and has over four degrees framed and hanging on the wall. My father has double undergraduate and double masters degrees as well as an M.B.A. I managed to finish one major in college, and I haven’t seen my Smyff degree since graduation. I bet it’s framed on the wall with her and my fathers degrees, actually…

I really have minimal desire to go back to school; I barely finished college alive, to be honest. The only thing that kept me sane during my time there was my participation on the tennis team, a few amazing professors, and my ex-girlfriend (who is now happily married and expecting a baby in February, but we’re still friends, and she reads this site, so hi Katja!). An M.B.A. would probably be the quickest and dirtiest degree to get – but to what end? I once told my academic adviser in college that my career goal was “lower-middle management.” Well baby, I’m there now! Who else can say they reached their lifetime carrer goal by the tender age of 27? Between that and working to make money for my hobby (photography, specifically wedding), what else could I possibly ask for, career-wise?

Does anyone else have this constant academic pressure from their family? Is this a normal “I just want my baby to be all they can be and be the best and be successful and happy” wish, or is this indicative of a bigger problem? I think that everyone else in my family got the overacheiving striver gene, whereas I got the laid-back surfer gene. No offense to surfers, of course. They just tend to be the most laid-back people I know.