A new concept: calendar appointments

This is not a new concept to most people, but apparently it is to you.

Do you know why I don't have to send out an email to everyone for the meeting tomorrow with the call-in conference number? Because we already set up a recurring meeting invitation months ago, which contains the number. So all that you or anyone else has to do is look at your calendar.

You're welcome.

This is time number 1,389 that I have told you this.

Classified ad for my job

 From a very sweet friend in my office. Unfortunately this is 100% true.

This is what an ad would look like for your job:

Must be able to lift a minimum of 200lbs as you will be responsible for moving around all office furniture (specifically when panic ensues and filing cabinets, desks, chairs and other non-essential crap needs to be relocated for no reason at all in five minutes and then moved again the following week and 4 more times in a month). You will be solely responsible for every employee's phone (which they will either break or never know how to use) and therefore must be well versed in dealing with annoying, useless, non-english speaking customer service reps who will actually never help you. Ideally, you will have several years of HR experience because for some nonsensical reason we decided you will be the point person for every employee's irritating questions, comments, complaints, health/dental issues and other dumb requests that you will frankly, not care about. Waiter/waitress experience a bonus as we will frequently require you to provide very "busy" (lazy) employees with their meals. Extensive computer knowledge is a plus as you will act as the IT company even though we actually have an IT company that we overpay tremendously. You will be expected to be on-call 24/7 to "put out fires" and answer random questions that aren't actually valid questions at all because the person asking them already knows the answer and just wants to bother you and make you angry because they are ridiculous. Lastly, you should be able to perform administrative tasks and be ok with being severely underpaid and unrecognized for your continued effort and loyalty.

DEAR FUCKING ASSHOLE BOSS

1. I actually can't read your mind. Notice to every boss forever, from now until the end of time: your assistant can never read your mind. Never.
2. You are annoyed that you have to deal with crises at work on your vacation. I have three suggestions for you: (1) shut up because you make 6x what I do so I don't care (2) actually try to take a vacation by, say, not answering your work phone (3) let people do their jobs without micro managing everything
3. The fact that you are annoyed because you have to work on your vacation is not an excuse to treat me like a child, yell at me, act like I'm a fucking idiot (when you are the idiot for not explaining yourself) or generally be a dick.

 You are an incredible asshole. I hope that I get the chance to tell you this someday. Of course, you won't take it well so I probably won't even bother doing it face to face. You think you are fantastic manager but you are actually the worst manager I have ever worked with, ever. You don't trust anyone to do their jobs, which means no one trusts themselves to do anything without checking with you on everything, which means they actually can't be trusted to do their jobs, which comes back full circle and lays the blame at your feet entirely.

You don't explain yourself well most of the time, expect that everyone always be automatically thinking about whatever you are thinking about, cut people off before they can finish talking, in many cases depriving yourself of the very information you are asking them for. You are impatient and paranoid. You take everything personally.

You, in other words, are WRONG. Just about as completely wrong as anyone could ever be.

So, thanks for starting my Friday off with a bang. I'm not answering my phone the next time you call, so you will just have to cool your heels.

Fuck you. Seriously.

When lazy meets overpriced: Alternate title: IT Consultants

My company employs IT consultants for some reason I will never fucking understand. We pay them almost 3x what we'd pay for actual employees in a given year and get much worse service.

Chalk it up as another thing that exists solely to make me lose my goddamn mind every time I think about it.

They only fucking work till 5pm of course. Because nobody has emergencies after 5pm. Oh, but wait, don't worry, they have a great method of taking care of after hour emergencies. You just leave a voicemail or email at the helpdesk and "everyone" is alerted and someone calls you back. Or they don't. You know, whatever.

So we are currently having a crisis with a computer connected to the building control system at one of the properties we manage - it is stuck and we can't get it to disconnect. We are afraid to just shut it down in case that causes a major problem at the other building. Nobody is answering the phone at the IT consultants' office STARTING AT 4:35 NOT 5.

FUCK YOU IT CONSULTANTS. FUCK YOU VERY MUCH.

My boss is an utter douchebag to receptionists everywhere

Here is an example script of a phonecall that just happened.

He makes a call on speakerphone in his office.

Receptionist: "Hello, such-and-such office."
Boss: (almost cutting her off) "Extension 350"
Receptionist: "Who is that?"
Boss: (probably misunderstanding her question) "Joe so-and-so. Extension 350."
Receptionist: (Trying again) "May I ask who's calling?"
Boss: (actually cutting her off) "Yes it's _Last Name_"
Receptionist: Attempts to repeat his last name in a questioning voice, as most normal people use either their first name or a full name, not last name only.
Boss: "Yeah sure, that's it. Whatever."
Receptionist: Puts him on hold.
Boss: (to me) "Fucking people. You don't get it. (To me, as I give him a look like he's being an utter asshole.) When you answer the phone you need to just transfer people. People don't have time to wait for you to ask them a thousand questions." (I shake my head in disgust. To be clear - digust with the boss.)
Receptionist: "He's not available, can I give you his voicemail?"
Boss: (cutting her off again) "Yeah that's fine just put me in voicemail." (Leaves a rambling voicemail for the person he is calling. Because apparently that guy's time isn't valuable.)

OK, I hope the problems with this are apparent to any normal human being. He uniformly acts like this about the terrible trials and tribulations he faces when having to speak to receptionists. By the way, he gets extremely annoyed with other people who act exactly like he is acting. He followed this up with another quick lecture to me about how I don't understand how important it is to transfer people quickly.

I have been a receptionist. In fact in many cases receptionists are NOT trained to just transfer calls as quickly as possible, many times they are asked to screen calls. And I guarantee you that if I received such a call from a person behaving as he did just now in my days at the front desk I would make quite certain that he had a very hard time getting through to anyone in my office ever again.

Fuck you, you're not too important to follow the normal rules of society, asshole. Treat the receptionist with some courtesy and stop making yourself feel special by doing things like using only your last name which obviously confuses the fuck out of everyone. You're not goddamn Madonna.

Not everything is about you, boss

Just came from a meeting with all the admin staff and the new President. Boss asked me to come in to his office and said, "Not that you have to tell me but..." and then asked about whether it came up that he also has regular meetings with the admin staff.

I tried to explain that it really wasn't that kind of meeting. This was about him just hearing about each of us a little, any immediate thoughts we had about things that do or don't need to change, etc. It wasn't about what our bosses do. He didn't get it. Seemed disappointed. Then annoyed.

God, everything is not about you. Stop being paranoid and ridiculous. Calm the fuck down.

On unreasonable anger at voicemail

Dear Boss:

You get unreasonably irate about voicemail systems when you call other offices. I am aware that you feel rushed and in a panic virtually at all times (though I do not understand why) but that does not account for your intense fury at a voicemail system that gives you instructions before letting you dial the party you are trying to reach. You should be able to understand that if they did not do that, nobody who had not called that office before would know what to do in order to get through to the person they were trying to reach.

Also, there is no need to get angry when you "can't reach a human being" after normal business hours. Most people, especially people who do things like operate switchboards at offices, leave on time. So it is completely unreasonable to get angry that other people choose to work normal hours, when you yourself do not.

Please make note of these important facts that I am sharing with you, as letting your blood pressure rise about 200 points because you have to spend 10 extra seconds on the phone is really not worth it.

On how to select a new phone system

Or rather, how not to.

Probably, you shouldn't set up demos with several vendors, then upon receiving their quotes for various systems (before the demo) have me call them to ask me why we should get this or that system versus something else.

Well, they are probably just giving us a range of options and I think it's kind of the point of the demo. Right?

It's like trying to cover the topics of a meeting before a meeting. Less effective, especially when a demonstration is involved, and then sort of renders the demonstration pointless.

Also, comments like, "Call this phone expert that so and so knows and ask them what the absolute best most reliable phone system is," are stupid.

Well, since in my recent conversations I have found out that there are probably at least a half dozen major phone system manufacturers, and each probably offers a range of at least 3-4 different products, I'm pretty certain there is not one easy to point to best system.

I mean, is there one best car? One best TV? One best computer?

SIGH.