Just when I thought I was done being so pissed off that I thought I was going to blow a gasket. Something happened today that just sent my anger back into over drive. IÂ’m so pissed right now I can barely type. Unfortunately, I donÂ’t have all the details at this time, so I donÂ’t want prematurely to launch into a tirade only to do a retraction later. I guess that puts me a step up over the MSM.

As soon as I have all my facts sorted out I’ll share the fun with all of you, I promise. Until then I’ll just leave you with this teaser, when promoting someone it should be based on ability, drive and a proven willingness to do better. When telling someone they didn’t get the position they should not tell them stuff like, “You are limiting yourself because you are working too hard.”

Thanks to that kind of feedback I just lost one of my best producing minions. She now feels that she is being punished because she is a hard worker.

Did I ever mention my peers are farking dumb arses?!

Posted by: Contagion at 01:01 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 197 words, total size 1 kb.

My job is veryÂ… unique in my company. There are only a handful of people that hold my position. Adding to the fact that IÂ’m the Senior level, which makes it even more rare. That makes my job a lot more difficult then it really has to be. Why? Because no one else in my office understands all that I do. This has its ups and itÂ’s downs.

The upside is that because they donÂ’t understand what I do, including my manager, at review time I always do well as long as the goals are being received. They donÂ’t know how I meet them, just that I do. Or if IÂ’m not meeting them, they want to know why. When I try to explain, I can actually see their eyes glaze over. Just last week I had my manager ask me to explain to her some of the stuff that I do. After 5 minutes of just doing the basics, I could tell she was lost. The other upside is that when I do make a mistake there is a 99.99% chance that I can correct it before anyone can detect it.

The downside is that since no one knows all that I do, they tend to think I donÂ’t do anything. Thus, they think I have a lot of spare time. This is absolutely positively not the case. I can see where they get that idea. Between gathering data and assigning work it looks like IÂ’m walking around just chatting a lot. If they actually ever paid attention to what I was doing/saying they would see that yes, sometimes I do just chit-chat (like everyone else) but usually IÂ’m talking about work. IÂ’m checking on what the person is doing, what theyÂ’ve done, or trying to correct problems. Sometimes they see me sitting at my desk just reading e-mail. What they donÂ’t realize is that IÂ’m waiting for a program to finish compiling data for a report IÂ’m running. While they system is doing that, I really canÂ’t do much else until it is finished, it takes up a lot of CPU power. Hell even checking my e-mail is really slow. How slow? Think of downloading a 100k file using a 14.4 dial-up. Yea, that slow.

What inevitably happens is that when some new task needs to be done, I get volunteered to do it. Usually when I’m volunteered it’s followed up with the phrase, “He’s got the time.” That brings me to the hellacious day I had today. First there is a guy that has a related job to what I do, but they are not the same. It would be like he’s motor oil and I’m gasoline. He keeps the parts moving, but I’m making the engine run. With out the both of us the office stops functioning properly. There is a reason why corporate have two separate people doing these jobs. IT IS WAY TOO MUCH FOR ONE PERSON TO DO. Except in my office, when the other guy is gone. I have to do his job AND mine and heaven forbid something goes wrong with either. Does he have to back me up when I’m gone? Nope… he has too much work to do.

This other guy is gone this week for the holiday. The last Friday of the month is when my goals are measured, since the last Friday of this month falls on a Holiday that means I get until Wednesday. That means I loose two days of production and have lower goals. (For examples sake if I had a full 20-day work month I could only have 500 items left at the end of the month, but since I only have 18 I can only have 470. ItÂ’s hard to explain other then that with out spending three days and 5 posts.) Plus his goals are due next Wednesday and I have to do my best to meet those as well. Needless to say my life is rather frantic right now. Throw in system problems, two added assignments because I donÂ’t do anything, and covering for a supervisor, plus my regular mentoring and my week has been hell. I know IÂ’m good, but IÂ’m not that good. Something had to give today, and it did. All the sensitivity training they had sent me to went right out the window.

There was no time for me to caress, finesse, argue or even instruct people today. It was barking orders, telling people off and basically taking command of the situation. Something I do a little too well from what I’m told. When I left today some of my peers where a bit annoyed, well okay they where down rite pissed at me for undermining their authority. As I told one of them, “If you had an inkling of how to do this part of your job properly, I wouldn’t have to do it for you.” When my manager came to me to talk to me about the situation I responded with, “You have me doing my coworkers job, I have my job, I have to conduct training, make sure the employees are doing their jobs, deal with system problems, help this other department, on top of trying to meet my goals that are due by end of business tomorrow. You have effectively taken away all my resources, made it so that there is a better then likely chance I will fail and you decide NOW is a good time to chat with me about my attitude? Do me a favor, schedule a meeting about it for next Wednesday, that seems to be what this office likes to do best and that is my next free time.” Her response was, “I don’t think this is a good time.” After she walked away I mumbled, “No shit, what was you first clue? The blinking red alerts on my monitor telling me we are in trouble or the blinking red alerts in my eyes that say disgruntled?”

Luckily I had enough sense to wait until she was out of earshot to say that.

<sarcasm>
***Clapping, with a big grin on my face***

I canÂ’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!

</sarcasm>

Posted by: Contagion at 05:43 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 1040 words, total size 5 kb.

1 I can't really identify... except for that "He's got time" crap. Some guy did that to me, just the other day...

Posted by: That 1 Guy at November 22, 2005 08:13 PM (Ilkox)

2 Try carrying a screwdriver and a clipboard around a lot. Then everyone will think you're very busy. It works for me, and I'm pretty sure the reason people leave me alone is NOT because the end of the screwdriver has been filed down to a sharp point...

Posted by: Ogre at November 23, 2005 05:46 AM (/k+l4)

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Sometimes I swear my company does stuff just to make the employeeÂ’s lives difficult. At the beginning of September, we switched to an electronic/online system for reimbursement of work related expenses. This covers things like travel, conferences, client meetings, etc. The old system all you had to do was fill out a form, attach your receipts and give to your manager for signing. Then the manager would send it to the reimbursement department. In about 2-3 weeks, you would get a check for the amount submitted. It was relatively easy to use and you had a definite period for reimbursement.

This new system has complicated the process to the point of annoyance. Now you have to go online through their very user-unfriendly system called Concur. Then you have to create an expense report AND an itinerary if you traveled. If you used your company card, you need to wait until the expenses show up in the system before you can put in for reimbursement. Once gone through all that, adding each line and correcting all the mistakes that the auto transfer system makes you can “submit” it. What they mean is that it sends an electronic signature to your manager, and then it prints a copy for you to fax to another office.

Putting it like that makes it sound not so bad, IF IT WORKED! I went to Texas October 17 through the 21st. I paid for EVERYTHING with my corporate card. The items never showed up in Concur like they where supposed to. Every time I asked someone about it, they told me, just wait it can take some time. So I waited and checked every couple of days. Yesterday I received a Bill from the Corp Card company wanting payment. When I came into work today, my charges STILL were not showing. To say I was irritated would be an understatement. When I contacted the help department, I received the same song and dance. This time however I refused to listen to them and explained; ItÂ’s been over 2 weeks and nothing has showed up, yet I have a bill to pay the card. Now someone says, well it must not have transferred, lets look at it. Sure enough, it didnÂ’t transfer properly and I have to manually transfer the charges.

Then when we first switched to this system, I was told that if you paid on your corporate card, you don’t need receipts. The system will accept what is received from the card company as proof of payment. Okay! That makes sense; they already have the charges on the card and can see from where the charge originated. Why would they need another receipt? Well once again, I was misled. Nope, if you have purchases for meals or taxi/limos/car services you still need a receipt. Now, it is looking like I’m going to be stuck with paying close to $100.00 out of my pocket, because I don’t have those receipts. I had them when I came back from my trip, but was told, “You don’t need them”. To the best of my memory, I believe I threw them out. That was AFTER I was told I didn’t need them because I used my corporate card!

Everyone that I have talked to that uses this new system hates it. They all have the same complaints and have run across the same problems, including the receipt issue. One person I talked to is still waiting for reimbursement from a trip they took back in September!

Under the old system, I would have submitted my form the day I returned and would have received payment by this Friday at the latest. With this new system, I may not get reimbursement untilÂ… ever

Posted by: Contagion at 02:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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