I can't seem to get my peers and upper management at my company to understand basic math. I have 5 people that are trained on a product, only five. It takes about 4.25 people a day to get all the work done for that product. I end up loaning one of my people out to help with other products at least once or twice a week.

Well, I had one of my five get promoted. That left me with four. I have a second one that is being sent to another office to help train new employees there, that leaves me with three. I have one off each week on vacation for the next month that leaves me with two. Two people to do the job of 4.25 people.

Today one of my peers comes to me and says that one of her people is off on medical leave for the next couple of weeks and I have to give up one of my people for the next month to cover it. This was a surprise meeting with upper management and all. I explained the hardship that giving up one more person is going to put my one last remaining employee into. That didn't matter, they felt the one last remaining employee can hold the department together for at least a month.

Of course I'm going to hire a new employee to replace the one promoting, but that could take at least a week or two. Plus when they start they need to be trained and brought up to speed.

I can't wait until the end of June when I have to send my last remaining employee into a class for support... because they HAVE to be there. In fact they even tried to force me to give up two. I'm not kidding, I litteraly sat there with counters and did basic math with them to show them I didn't have anyone else. One of the upper management said, "It doesn't matter, they have to be in there." So at this point I asked who they wanted me to send. They gave me a name... Nope, she promoted. They gave me another name... Nope she is in a class out of state. They gave me a third name... Nope she's already in the class. They gave me a fourth name... Nope, she's on Vacation. They gave me the fifth name... Nope, they are taking the place of my peer's missing employee. That's when I got, "Well who's left?" and I kid you not people, my answer was rather calm and collected.

I responded back with, "Why there is no one left. That is what I'm trying to tell you. The only person that I'll have at that time is possibly a new trainee, for which I won't have anyone to train. And I can't put a trainee in a class to train other trainees."

... and they still said I had to get someone. So I asked them which project is least important and I'll pull that employee off of it and reassign them to the training room. To which my manager responded that I couldn't pull any of them. At the end of the meeting, they still couldn't grasp basic math and I still had to give up an employee I don't have at the end of the month. Plus I have to keep my regular work running smoothly and evenly.

So you'll have to excuse me while I wait for the three Advil to kick in so I can figure out a way to bend the space/time continuum.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:14 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I had a blast last weekend, and yes I did get wet. Heck, I'm not sure I'd know what to do if I didn't get rained on. I've got a lot of stories, but I'm going to save those for now. I'm waiting for some incriminating evidence to show up in my inbox.

Returned to work today after the fun weekend. Like every day, it was full of meetings. I've decided I could be a very productive member of my company if it wasn't for all of the meetings. Today we had the grand daddy of the least productive meetings we've had. A meeting to determine how to schedule the late night shift.

In my department we have flexible hours. Meaning you can start anytime between 7:00 AM and 9:30 AM. You can leave after putting in your 8 hour day (plus 30 minute unpaid lunch). The last "shift" ends at 6:00 PM. We have to have a supervisor there until 6:00 PM every night. Most of us really don't want to work that late unless we really have to. In fact none of us want to do it. So we all take turns taking a couple of nights each month.

Now of course when ever the schedule comes out, someone complains about the nights they have or having to take time to pick nights, or just to complain. We've done this in many different ways and no-one is ever happy, except me because I don't care. Since enough people complained about it today we had this meeting. We were going to decide if an office assistant was going to do the schedule or if we were going to get together and work it out ourselves.

One supervisor in the meeting has a very domineering personality and always wants things her way, I'll call her "L". Another has a very domineer personality and wants to be in control, I'll call her "M". A third has control issues, Hence forth known as "H". Of course there is me. There were 12 people in this meeting. Yet most of the talking was done by L, M and H.

It started off with a vote, but everyone had to pontificate why they wanted to do it. As I was the second to last person to be asked and we'd been in the meeting for 25 minutes already I just said, "I don't care how you do it, someone's going to b&tch anyway." Some people were offended, some laughed, I just stewed at the stupidity of this figuring this meeting could have been over 5 minutes after it started.

Then H brought up that she hadn't been on the weekly schedule, just the weekend one, because her position dictates she has to get there early, like around 5:00 AM. She has to have the inventory and work set up for everyone by the time we start at 7:00 AM. This brought up a huge argument. L and M thought H should be on the nightly rotation anyway. H said she had no problem, but on the days she is on the schedule someone else would have to come in at 5:00 to do the inventory. L thought it wasn't fair and wanted to evaluate how H did her job. M agreed with H. They brought up the fairness of her staff and so on. This went back and forth. The whole time my anger just stewed.

Finally I blew up in a level of, well historic proportions. I've had an average of 9 late nights every three months. Normally I just pick up extras because I don't want to hear the bitching. L has picked up an average of 6 every 3 months. M and most of the other supervisors did an average of 7. If anyone had a right to be pissed off over the late night schedule, it should be me... and I wasn't.

I went on an angry tirade and ended up calling them all a bunch of whiny fifteen year old school girls. Which really pissed L and M off. Actually I shocked everyone in the room. It's been a while since I've gone that mental in a meeting and I don't think they expected it. A couple of the people thought I was okay and was sticking up for H, whom L and M were attacking. Some thought I was being rude and uncalled for. My response to that in the meeting was, "I don't F#CKING care!"

Three of my peers after the meeting ushered me out of the building and took me to a restaurant for lunch. They knew I was hot and was just a cross eyed look from erupting again.

Anyway, I think I may have gone over board this time and have crossed THE line. I probably won't find out until next week, but honestly if I did. Owell, it might be the best thing that's happened to me in a while.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:55 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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