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.

On making and keeping appointments

My boss has been trying to make an appointment with a phone vendor to look at our phone system here at the office. We have been having various problems for a while now.

Last week he had me start calling vendors to submit quotes to us and come in to do demos. Last week I scheduled a vendor to do a demo today at 1pm.

Yesterday at about 5pm he had me cancel today's meeting because "something came up" today. (Hint: something always comes up.) Today he asked me to try to reschedule with the vendor, plus another one, for tomorrow.

I don't know about you, but most working people try to schedule their time in advance by more than 1 working day.

Neither vendor is available at the very specific times he wanted tomorrow (not just anytime tomorrow, but, like 10:15 or 4:30 only).

His response to this was, "Neither of them can do tomorrow? Neither of them?" ... "OK well schedule a meeting, put it in my calendar, for 4pm tomorrow for you and me to sit down and go over this phone stuff. It is not being dealt with at a high enough level. It needs to be escalated."

Dear boss: You cancelled today's meeting with less than 24 hours notice and then tried to set up a new meeting again with less than 24 hours notice. This is not how normal people operate. Your time management skills are non-existant. FAIL.

I'm not sure if it's irony but it's something

When I visit this blog which I have forsaken for literally years, and find that my last post is from over a year ago, and it's called "Ah blog, how I have forsaken thee". Oops.

Sorry.

Honestly, I probably have 10 ridiculous tales to post here literally every day so I really shouldn't forsake it.

Ah, blog. I have forsaken thee.

And it is a real shame, because there is so much rich content every day all day long. I apologize and promise to never forget you again.

Printer Nazi cum Server Nazi

Sigh.

Server Nazi, you make me upset. Your powers of control over the printer were not enough for you, and you are now attempting to increase your range to the company fileserver/email server.

Unfortunately for me, you deem me some kind of technological whiz, so I get to field lots of questions and commentary from you, and this makes my brain hurt.

For instance, I did not enjoy the conversation we just had about how "when the bytes get to 140 our IT guy said that's 'breakdown time' and people need to start cleaning stuff out."

I think what this means is, when the size of our backup data set reaches approximately 140GB the server hard drive is uncomfortably full.

But unfortunately, by telling you that this is "breakdown time" the IT guy has given you ammunition you really didn't need as you were already happy to pester people about "cleaning stuff out" on the fileserver and in their email.

Besides the obviously annoying parts of this whole debacle, my real point is this:

Storage is cheap.

If we keep running out of room on the hard drive of the server the solution is not to keep telling people to "clean out" their files, possibly deleting stuff they would rather not or that they may need, the solution is just to get a bigger hard drive. Please, for the love of God. I mean honestly, when we have significantly more file storage in our apartment than our company has in the office, I think there's cause for concern.

In other words, if we can afford a terabyte external drive for backup at home, I'm pretty sure the company can spring for a larger hard drive (or even multiples!) for the server. Larger than 300GB that is.

An IT Tirade

Why the fuck does a company whose owners literally make hundreds of millions of dollars a year have shittier IT than I do in my apartment? Seriously.

1. Everyone uses their last name as their password for the network and email. The reason for this? That's how the consultant sets up new accounts by default. Nobody changes it. (Well, with rare exception, I know of 2 people including myself.)


2. Their "backup strategy" is having a random person who happens to sit near the server change the backup tape each morning and take the previous day's tape home with her. We only keep 2 weeks worth of backups and we keep "archive" backups on the last Friday of every month. So if you deleted something important on November 20, 2007, too bad for you. It's gone forever.


3. Our IT consultant hasn't checked the server logs in at least 7 months. They are so large that Excel can't even import the full .csv files because they're too many rows long.


4. Nothing on the server is organized with any sort of permissions at all. Everyone has access to everything. Including offer letters, severance information, personal financial data about the owners, etc. (Again, with rare exception - I have a protected folder with some HR stuff in it.)


5. Everyone has a different computer. When we hire someone, if they're not a replacement for somebody else (and thus inheriting their old computer) we just buy them some new computer. Whatever Dell is pushing at the moment. We have no plan for rolling out new systems or schedule for doing so.


6. We don't manage our software licenses like a business should. We just get a copy of Windows with whatever computer we order. We can't transfer licenses for these copies of Windows, so if we trash a computer we trash the license too. Awesome.


7. Pretty much, nobody knows how to use anything. Everybody needs to be trained. Those of us who are a little more tech-savvy than others end up trouble shooting everything ourselves and for others.


8. Our IT consultant is a moron. He knows less than I do about most stuff and I certainly would never even attempt to get a job in IT. On numerous occasions he has fed me total bullshit that I know for a fact to be 100% wrong. But we're paying him $150/hour or something for this great "work".


9. The person "in charge of IT" (ie: in charge of calling our IT consultant) doesn't know jack shit about it and spends no time planning or managing it at all.

What the fuck.

On "almost throwing up"

This email, which I just sent out in desperation to some of my coworkers, should speak for itself:

I can't take much of anything from anyone today. I just heard Mr. X (one of the owners of the company) being warned that the popcorn back here is unsafe because people were taking popcorn directly from the tin with their hands! Instead of using a paper cup! Apparently N_______ "almost threw up" yesterday watching people eat it.

1. Everyone touches everything in this place with their hands, so let's get real for a minute. If you're that concerned, I hope you're disinfecting everything that you touch and also wearing a germ mask.


2. How much better is using a paper cup, which people touch WITH THEIR HANDS and leave sitting IN THE POPCORN THEREFORE MAKING IT THE SAME AS IF THEY TOUCHED THE POPCORN WITH THEIR HANDS???? Do they think the germs respect the imaginary boundary of the paper cup, staying safely there and away from the popcorn IT'S SITTING IN???????????


3. The "almost threw up" comment is a little much, really. She makes me almost throw up.


4. She is free to not eat the popcorn, but it is unnecessary to make it sound like touching it will give you leprosy or something, and again, to loudly announce that you "almost threw up".

I'm on the verge of actually wearing my headphones at my desk. That is a sad commentary for 11:29 in the morning.

Awesomeness Abounds

You know what's really fucking awesome? When an "Executive Assistant" who is very careful to always let everyone know how above them she is because of this title (which means nothing, other people are assistants to executives, they just don't care about titles here - but she insisted on this being hers I believe) never has anything to do because she's so bad at her job that people don't trust her and give her work to everyone else.

Her response to this is not to be proactive and ask for work or, I don't know, do a better job, which I guess is just beyond her. Her response is to mope and feel sorry for herself and complain about how she doesn't understand why no one will give her any work.

When they finally figure out how totally crappy she is at her job and fire her, do they send her away same-day as most places do every place I've ever worked? No, they give her FOUR MONTHS to find a new job and tell her that she can take time off to interview, or more specifically, she can come and go "as she pleases". Meanwhile, all the rest of us are still doing her work, she continues to get paid significantly more than all of us, and she works about 20 hours a week. I'm also quite sure she'll be milking every second of those four months.

AWESOME.

Seems to me if you can't trust you can't be trusted

News bulletin: Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Just because someone makes a mistake doesn't mean that now you "can't trust" anything else they do. I've heard this from you innumerable times about other people in the office and I assume you'd say the same thing about me if I weren't around as well. It's very paranoid and off-putting.

Mini Donuts at 4:43

And so my day has driven me to this. Little Debbie Powdered Donuts at my desk at the end of the day.

Yesterday sucked ass but I tried to start today on a positive note. I slept in a bit, till the last second at home, thinking this would make me more rested and pleasant. I had a perfectly fine walk to work.

But then I walked in the door and it all started going wrong. My neighbor, printer nazi, was being ANNOYING AS HELL. My boss called me in a pissy mood about filing not being done. The same filing he keeps telling me he's going to set aside time for us to do together. That never happens. I can't finish the filing because most of it is an unrecognizable pile of crap and I can't tell just by looking where he wants any of it to go. He doesn't exactly have a very organized filing system. He doesn't have standard folders or divisions that he uses so it's very haphazard. Sometimes when he puts something out to be filed there's no way to tell if it's the original that goes in the main office files or a copy he wants in "his" files in his office. So there's a stack of that waiting. I noticed the note on it today, which I had written a while ago, telling him he needed to help me with the rest of it. The date on the note was 7/26. Um, yeah.

I had a little project to do involving calling some local municipal offices to find out rates for various utilities next year. Some fucking asshole in the office, I have my suspicions of exactly who, had updated the spreadsheet I'm supposed to update (note: it specifically has my name there as the person responsible for these particular figures) with notes that made no sense and were probably based on nothing and confused the hell out of everyone.

I didn't have enough caffeine today so I had a pounding headache most of the afternoon. That's finally subsiding now that I broke down and got a diet dr. pepper. To go with my mini donuts naturally.

And lastly, the thing we were supposed to take care of "first thing" this morning still has not been addressed and now my boss is promising to "take care of it" when he gets back, around 5:30. Hopefully more like 5:45 when I'll be gone. He can take care of it himself.

Jesus.

Not puttin' up with crap

So some people in my office like to not tell me and other admin sorts when important things happen and then we get broadsided. We don't appreciate this and often make it known to others. Here is a pretty funny little conversation that just happened:

Other Admin: "Um, did you know so-and-so was moving out and possibly shutting off their phone lines tomorrow?"
Me: "Um, NO. Why the fuck doesn't anyone tell us these things?"
OA: "I don't have any idea. Anyway, X is on the phone if you want to talk to him about it." (X is our on-site person at this building. It's not his job to tell us this stuff, it's the property manager's job or the leasing guy.)

Me: "Hi, X. So what's going on?"
X: "Well so-and-so is moving out and my contact there is already gone but he told me he wasn't going to have the phone lines shut off but I'm not sure now."
Me: "Well it would be nice if certain other people told us these things."
X: "Well I'm sure the other people are busy."
Me: "Yeah well, aren't we all? Too bad, not an excuse."
X: "Wow! I love you girls! You don't take any crap!"

That's right, bitches. Do you hear that, certain other people?

Proofreading

Um, a crazy crazy lady in my office about whom I really need to tell a lot of stories, has left a list of the duties the woman covering for her in her absence (while on vacation) should be performing.

Among these duties, "Proof read".

Maybe she should have proofread her own note since it's one word, not two.

Oh my fucking God, T-Mobile sucks

Why T-Mobile sucks

(details removed only to protect my anonymity, not the idiots involved)

Email exchange #1:

From: C-----, K------- [mailto:K-------.C-----@T-Mobile.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 11:59 AM
To: Ms. Anonymous
Subject: Re: Client Access License

I am sorry I thought I had sent the info already. I will be back in the office in an hour I will send at that time.

K------- C-----
Business Account Executive

T-Mobile USA, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ms. Anonymous
To: K------- C-----
Sent: Wed Apr 18 08:46:31 2007
Subject: Client Access License

If I have this email address correct I spoke to you last week about needing an additional client access license for our company account. You were going to email me, but I never heard from you. Please let me know if you have received this email. I needed to let you know whether we have a full enterprise version or a small business version of the enterprise server for Blackberry.

Thanks.

Ms. Anonymous

Email exchange #2:

From: C-----, K------- [mailto:K-------.C-----@T-Mobile.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 12:54 PM
To: Ms. Anonymous
Subject: RE: Client Access License

Here is the contact person from RIM to purchase the licenses. I currently have no way of telling if your BES is the small business edition or not.

T-- S--------
BlackBerry Sales & Service Team Leader
ts--------@rim.com

Please contact me with any questions.

Thank you,
K-------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ms. Anonymous
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 11:59 AM
To: C-----, K-------
Subject: RE: Client Access License

It's possible that if you did our spam filter never let me get your email. I'll look for another one from you in a while. If I don't receive it I'll let you know. Thanks.

Ms. Anonymous

Email exchange #3:

From: C-----, K------- [mailto:K-------.C-----@T-Mobile.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 1:14 PM
To: Ms. Anonymous
Subject: RE: Client Access License

That is actually the information on your TSupport through RIM. You should contact them with this information as they should be able to let you know what type if BES you currently are running. Their website is www.blackberry.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ms. Anonymous
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 12:54 PM
To: C-----, K-------
Subject: RE: Client Access License

K------- - I got this info about our software from someone in my office - does this tell you if we have the small business edition or not?

Customer Name: Anonymous Company
TSupport Subscription Number: 1234567
TSupport Level: Tx1
BlackBerry Enterprise Server SRP Id(s) Covered: S12345678

Email exchange #4:

From: T-- S-------- [mailto:ts--------@rim.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:40 PM
To: Ms. Anonymous
Subject: RE: Client access license

Hello Ms. Anonymous,

When the BES was first purchased, it was a small business BES. When you signed up for support in 2005, you had 8 devices which still meant that you had a small business BES. However, the only way of finding out for sure is if you could tell me how many licenses you currently have. If you have 14 or less, you still have the small business BES. If you have 20 or more, you have the Enterprise BES.

Thanks,
T--

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ms. Anonymous
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:23 PM
To: T-- S--------
Subject: Client access license

Hi, T--.

I'm trying to find out whether my company has a small business or full edition of enterprise server because we need to purchase an additional client access license for a new blackberry device we have added.

T-Mobile is telling me I need to ask you as they can't tell from the information I've given them.

I got the following info from an administrator in my office - can you tell what version of the server we are running?

Customer Name: Anonymous Company
TSupport Subscription Number: 1234567
TSupport Level: Tx1
BlackBerry Enterprise Server SRP Id(s) Covered: S12345678

Please let me know. Thanks.

Ms. Anonymous

Email exchange #5:

From: T-- S-------- [mailto:ts--------@rim.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:56 PM
To: Ms. Anonymous
Subject: RE: Client access license

K, you’re small business then.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ms. Anonymous
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:44 PM
To: T-- S--------
Subject: RE: Client access license

OK, thanks. I don't believe we have close to 14. I think we have 10-11 at the most

.

Email exchange #6:

From: C-----, K------- [mailto:K-------.C-----@T-Mobile.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:57 PM
To: Ms. Anonymous
Subject: Re: Client Access License

Contact T-- S--------. I sent you his info earlier.

K------- C-----
Business Account Executive

T-Mobile USA, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ms. Anonymous
To: C-----, K-------
Sent: Wed Apr 18 11:44:14 2007
Subject: RE: Client Access License

K-------, we have the small business edition. What do I need to do to get the client access license?

Email exchange #7:

From: T-- S-------- [mailto:ts--------@rim.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 3:05 PM
To: Ms. Anonymous
Subject: RE: Client access license

You can order it from T-Mobile or call my sales team at 1-800-327-9085 to order.

Thanks,


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ms. Anonymous
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 3:02 PM
To: T-- S--------
Subject: RE: Client access license

OK, so how do I get the client access license now?

Ms. Anonymous

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: T-- S-------- [mailto:ts--------@rim.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:56 PM
To: Ms. Anonymous
Subject: RE: Client access license

K, you’re small business then.

And finally, my most recent email, which has yet to get a response:

From: Ms. Anonymous
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 3:06 PM
To: C-----, K-------
Subject: RE: Client Access License

K-------,

Tim just told me to get it from T-Mobile, or that I could contact his sales team.

I thought all you needed was to know what version of the software we had and then you could give me a license? Please help me get this done, I've been trying to set this up for weeks now literally. I have a new employee who can't use his Blackberry.

What normally happens if I go to a T-Mobile store and buy a Blackberry? Doesn't someone give me everything I need to use it?

It seems like every time I contact someone they just point me to another department or another vendor.

I would appreciate you telling me definitely exactly what I need to do and I'd prefer to just go through T-Mobile if that's possible so I don't have multiple people and companies to deal with.

Thanks.

Ms. Anonymous