There are some things that one just isnÂ’t meant to understand. The meaning of life, what happens to socks in the dryer, why people in small vehicles like to pull out in front of my truck while IÂ’m doing 55 MPH. IÂ’ve just come to the conclusion that these things are just not meant for me to understand. These last couple of weeks at work, IÂ’ve added yet another thing to that list.

Why is there no logic to the decisions made by my peers and superiors?

Example. Last week I had 6 projects that had to be done by end of business Friday. One of them I had known about since the end of May, but due to the availability of certain data, I could not get started on it until Monday. On Tuesday they sent me to another office on business, effectively taking away 20% of my work time. After busting hump all week it looked like I was going to finish all 6 projects by the end of business on Friday. Then at 11:00AM on Friday I get hit with, “Contagion, I have a project I need you to handle.” After some prodding and asking, it too had to be done by the end of the day. After going over my list of other projects and the precarious deadline for them as well. I was told that THIS project takes precedence. Then I explained that according to other management my other projects take precedence… and to be honest the one that directly affected my employees was the one that I was going to finish first.

And before I could think I asked, “If it’s so important, why are you waiting until 11:00 AM on Friday to give it to me.” The response was that they had given it to someone else two weeks ago, but they didn’t have access to the right reports in order to get it done today. Okay… well fine but the reports they don’t have access to, neither do I. So it was “Okay, what’s the soonest you can get access?” Monday at the earliest, probably Wednesday was my best guess. Now, the logic of everything else that led up to this is escaping me and the more I learned the more confused I became. But it was after telling them Wednesday would be the most likely time to get the access when I’m told. “Well do it right away, we need you to get these reports done.” That I had the revelation that I will never, ever in my lifetime be able to understand how my superiors and peers come to the decisions they make.

See the reason I wasnÂ’t originally given the project was because I already have a heavier work load then my peers. My peer that was given the original project sat on it for a week before saying she didnÂ’t have access. Instead of giving it to me right away or trying to get her access, they waited until Friday to throw it on my load. Then when I didnÂ’t have access, I needed to get it right away so that I could do the project late. Why not have the original person that screwed up request the access that day? Maybe they should have given it to me right away so I could have tried to squeeze it in. Of course they could have given it back to the original person and told them to get the access so they could do it late.

The sad thing is that if they were trying to do something to make me look bad, this doesnÂ’t work. IÂ’ve got all the documentation that they waited until late in the day to give it to me and that I didnÂ’t have access. All out of my control, so IÂ’m not worried about it. My work philosophy plays in well with this situation.

A bad decision by you does not make an emergency for me.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:13 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Work is sending me to Naperville, IL this morning. I'm not sure what time this evening I'm going to be back. The reason I'm going to this other office really isn't for fun reasons. Couple that with with the fact that no one really knows what is going to happen should make for a long day. Oh, and probably some extremely unhappy people.

O'well, I guess I'm just doing my job.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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At my place of employment it is pretty common to see candy dishes or bowls set out for people to help themselves to a little treat. Heck, IÂ’m known in the office as the guy that has the good chocolate. (I work mainly with women, having chocolate at my desk keeps them mellower and me saner.) Yesterday was I was walking through my unit just talking to my employees about anything but work; I noticed one of them had a bowl with green, yellow and white Jelly Beans in it. Being as I am a Green Bay Packer fan, I couldnÂ’t help but notice it was their color scheme.

I asked her what was up with the “Packer” themed jelly beans. She advised that they are all flavors she didn’t like out of this bag of jelly beans she had bought. The green was pear, the yellow was lemon and the white was buttered popcorn. I figured I’d try one to see how bad it was. I started with a pear… and about lost my lunch. It was disgusting. They laughed at the face I made while finishing it off.

Opting not to try the yellow since I don’t like lemon, I grabbed a white one. Now, I love popcorn, and these weren’t bad. It didn’t taste exactly like buttered popcorn, but you could get the similarity. Since I liked them, she told me to take all the white ones… and I did. As I walked up and down the rows talking to my people one of them asked me what I was eating. “Its popcorn flavored jelly beans. They’re pretty good”, I tell her. She then asked me were I got them. So I told her that the other employee didn’t like them and gave them to me. She says to me, “Make sure you don’t eat too many, they are sugar free.”

At that point I had already eaten about 30 of the things, and I knew I was in for trouble. I go back to the employee I got them from and confirmed they were indeed sugar free. She even has the bag they came out of. Right on the back it states eating too many can cause “Gastric Distress”. The main sweetening ingredient in sugar-free candy is Maltitol. It’s also used as the active ingredient in laxatives. I had just finished eating a handful of these little gastric bombs. I knew was I going to be in trouble.

My employees are laughing, the one that gave it to me didnÂ’t think to warn me they were sugar-free, and found it even more amusing. After they all had a great laugh, and I explained that I was going to be able to spend some quality time in the bathroom, I went back to my desk. About 45 minutes later IÂ’m doing the duck walk to the bathroom as I feel a tightening in my bowel. This fun lasted for another couple of hours until it was finally out of my system.

Thanks to my employees, I think my colon is the cleanest itÂ’s been in years.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:44 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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ItÂ’s been a long time since IÂ’ve shared one of these stories with all of you, so I thought now is a good time to do so. Plus itÂ’s a nice light story to help make Friday go by faster. ItÂ’s been over a year, but now for an installment of Pranks pulled on Minions.

My company is big into the healthy lifestyle movement. They try to get everyone to eat healthier, quit smoking, and just make “healthier” choices in general. Part of that is walking a mile a day. For the record, I do not participate in these activities. I do have a couple of employees that do. The big thing is the walking. When the weather is bad they walk inside the building making so many laps that would equal a mile. If it is nice outside, they walk around the parameter of the property through the parking lot.

Yesterday as I left the building to go to lunch I see two of my minions power walking through the lot… right toward my truck. They looked like they were concentrating really hard on making sure their arms were swinging properly and their pace was fast enough. With keys in my hand, my mischievous side took over. It pushed the sensitivity class reprogrammed part of my brain out of the way. Right as they got next to my truck, I “accidentally” hit the panic alarm. Anyone that has heard the horn on my truck knows this is not your typical little “meep meep” sound. It’s a “HOOOOOoooOOOOONK HOOOOOoooOOOOONK!” that can rattle the teeth.

Or in this case make the power walking minions jump a good foot into the air with their arms flailing like the ground had just opened up underneath them. I quickly turned it off. When I go to them they where breathing harder then the power walking would have made them and they looked a little pale. I apologized for hitting the alarm, “I meant to hit unlock.” They weren’t mad; in fact they found it humorous. They just wanted to let me know they needed to take a longer lunch so they could go home and change clothes.

I hadnÂ’t done anything like that in over a year. Boy do I miss it.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:00 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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You would think I would have learned my lesson by now. There is an issue at work that all of my peers and myself agree needs changing. Unfortunately we canÂ’t make that change with out approval from upper management. On Tuesday we sat down and talked it over amongst ourselves to make sure we were all on the same page. At that time I told them this will not work unless we all support it AND openly support it. If anyone backs down, then we wonÂ’t get anything changed. Everyone agreed and wanted to make the change, it was decided that weÂ’d discuss this with upper management today in one of our bi-weekly meetings.

We are in the meeting, and one of my peers turns to me and quietly says just to me, “Contagion, bring up that thing we spoke about.” I should have realized what was going to happen then, but of course I didn’t. I laid out my proposal, and as soon as upper management started questioning it or showed hesitation, they all started backing down. Some said, “We can’t do that.” or “It won’t work”.

The sad thing is that this change is not something that will have that big of an impact on me. They all want it more then I do, they are just too damn cowardly to say so. So instead they hang me out as the fall guy (Literally). But you know what, IÂ’ve learned my lesson. I know where the battle lines are drawn and that from this point on; itÂ’s me versus them.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:50 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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IÂ’ve been whining about a head cold for three days. Which if that isnÂ’t bad enough, I ended up leaving work early today because of it. The incessant dripping of mucus down my throat was annoying enough, starting to lose my voice was even worse. When the front of my face felt like it was trying to bulge out like balloon almost made up my mind.

The icing on the cake was when I made a huge no-no. I took some Nyquil at work. Which, normally isnÂ’t bad. I just get a little groggy but I feel a hell of a lot better. Well not today. My brain when into a vapor lock and I ended up making a huge mistake. How huge, uh well I ended up violating some Federal laws. It wasnÂ’t intentional. But in my Nyquil addled mind and rush to get work done before a meeting I completely missed a simple step in one of our procedures.

This allowed someoneÂ’s personal information to be released to the wrong people. Quickly I jumped on the phones and started calling all over the place to do damage control. I think everything has been taken care of, and the information was stopped before it was actually sent out. We wonÂ’t find out until tomorrow if they where able to stop it in time.

So now I feel like a big wussy. Because I couldnÂ’t handle the discomfort of a head cold I ended up making a big mistake.

Posted by: Contagion at 11:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I feel like IÂ’ve been put through a washer. Last night I started developing a sore throat, that turned into a full blown head cold by midnight. Between the post nasal drip and the river of snot flowing from my nose, it was a little difficult to get any sleep, which didnÂ’t help the cold any. That meant my mental capacity is not working at fully acceptable levels all day.

Then to make matters worse we had the first day of a three-day Audit at work. Not an internal audit, but an external audit. An outside company came to check our policies and procedures as well to make sure we are in compliance with State and Federal law. Guess who has to go before the audit review board this afternoon? ThatÂ’s right, Mr. Groggy head. Why me? Well to be honest, I do most of the inventory tracking, I almost always wear a shirt and tie to work even though I donÂ’t have to, and IÂ’ve had experience going through these before.

I knew this was coming and that I was going to have to give testimony, but I didnÂ’t realize what it was going to be like. I spent an hour and a half being grilled by a panel of four over where we get our information, how we come up with our figures, and how we confirm that the information is accurate. Since two of the panel have never worked in my industry, it was really difficult to try to explain things to them.

About half way through, I started developing a headache. That made things even more difficult. Then they start questions where I came up with these procedures and policies. Folks, I would like to say that my mouth filter kicked in and that the last year of working hard to be a better corporate citizen paid offÂ…

…but it didn’t. I spouted off, “I didn’t. Someone else came up with them, I was just taught how to find the data using these methods and have been doing it since. If you really want to know why things are done this way, I suggest you come back three months ago and ask the guy whom I took over doing these reports for.”

Yea, probably not the best answer. An hour and a half later I’m finally released from my tribunal. I feel like I was raked over hot coals. At one point I had to lead the panel on a field trip to my desk to give them a demonstration of the reporting system and basic math. No I’m not joking. I couldn’t get them to grasp the concept that Beginning inventory + Receipts – Ending Inventory = Releases. Yes it was really that simple.

Now if youÂ’ll excuse me, IÂ’m going to go mix some Jack-quil D to take care of this head coldÂ… and to forget.

Because I get to do it again tomorrowÂ… only over a different procedure.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:30 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Theresa of Technicalities talks about the lack of foresight by our elected leaders when they altered Daylight Savings Time. I agree with her, why fix whatÂ’s not broke. Unless you want to break something so that people can spend money to fix what they broke. Yea, that was a confusing sentence. Me, I have a simple solution.

Today at work I announced that I no longer recognize nor observe Daylight Savings time. This year I will not change my watch, reset any clocks or anything. I am officially on Contagion doesnÂ’t give a flying rats arse time. That means that if they do not show up by 7:00 AM CST (Contagion Standard Time) they will be counted as late. If they leave after 3:30 PM CST they will not get paid for hours worked outside of standard business hours.

I explained to all of my peers and managers that if they do not comply with my time, then they will be violating my diversity and insensitive to my personal beliefs. I will be offended by their lack of diversity and understanding. The work hours will rotate around my scientific and logical belief that politicians cannot dictate the time. Sure they can tell you they are going to change it, but if you think about it, they really are not. They arenÂ’t changing the time; they are just telling you that the time is different. If they told you that between March and November that grass is actually orange, and everyone says it is orangeÂ… itÂ’s not really orange!

Well dammit! IÂ’m taking a stand! IÂ’ve turned off all the daylight savings time features on my electronics and am set to make my stand. It is currently 7:30 PM in exactly 168 hours it will still be 7:30 PMÂ… not 8:30PM that Congress wants you to believe it will be.

So donÂ’t buy into the conspiracy to take away our time! Take back your watches, your clocks and your hour of sleep!

Now if youÂ’ll excuse me, IÂ’m going to go replace my tinfoil beanie. IÂ’ve seemed to torn mine in the rant.
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Posted by: Contagion at 07:26 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Apparently my brain does have a filter to prevent me from saying things that will get me into a lot of trouble. It also seems that it speaks in different languages then I do.

I had a big meeting this morning at work. We were going over a problem we are having with some of our inventory. This has been something I’ve been working on for 3 weeks to no avail. One of my two managers started making statements that where completely uninformed and outlandishly simple on how to deal with the situations. One of the statements was, “All you have to do is make a phone call and it’s done.” That statement would be the equivalent of saying is, “All you have to do is push a button on a camera and you have a picture in your hand.” Well, no. You have to load the camera with film, then you take the lens cap off, aim the picture, push the button, take the film to have it developed, the people there do there job and an hour later you have your picture. Sorry, I couldn’t come up with a better analogy. The phone call was step one in a 30-step process. Phone calls had been made 3 weeks ago, so it’s more then that. There was a bunch of other stuff being said as well.

I tried to explain it’s not as simple as he would like to think. He kept insisting this could be done by the end of the day. In reality, even if I had an easy button and the planets aligned just right so that I had the powers of a god, the soonest it could be done is tomorrow, in reality it will be another 2 weeks while all the other departments involved get online. He just kept interrupting me, making outlandish statements and completely being an annoyance. My temper was starting to get the better of me, and it was getting heated in that room. Finally my temper let loose with, “You farking idiot. You might want to shut up while the people that know what they are doing discuss this you stupid son of a beaotch.”

It was at that point the buffer in my brain kicked in. However, instead of not letting me say anything, it translated it into a different language. A fictional different language. One that only the most hard core of geeks may pretend to know. No, it wasnÂ’t Klingon; it was Wookie. Yea, I said Wookie, as in Chewbacca from Star Wars. ThatÂ’s right, in the middle of a meeting I let out a very loud Wookie howl. The meeting stopped dead.

My peers are looking at me with that, “What the hell was that?” look on their faces. The two managers just kind of stared at me as if I had spontaneously grown a second head. I was so hot that I didn’t even realize what I had done until one of my peers started laughing and another one asked me what that noise I made was. Then in my head I heard the sound I had just made. Fortunately, none of the people in the room were big enough Star Wars fans to recognize it, except for one person. They did say it was an impressive Wookie howl.

Eh, at least I didnÂ’t get in trouble.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:10 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Why is the first day back to work after a long vacation from work so hard? I didnÂ’t do anything all that taxing, but damn if this day did not suck. It only took 30 minutes of me sitting at my desk to start day dreaming of still being in bed, watching TV or even just blogging. Alas, I had to be a responsible adult and go to work.

Thankfully there is another holiday weekend in two weeks. I need a break.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Yesterday I bought lunch for my employees as an appreciation for all of their hard work. I let them decide where we would get lunch. Of course getting 18 people to agree on anything takes a minor miracle. After much debate, some mediation and finally my drawing a circle in the parking lot and letting two of them fight it out with staffs, they decided on a local Bar-B-Que joint.

When I called the restaurant two weeks ago to order the food, they where very helpful by assisting me place my order. They asked how many people I was feeding, asked me what I wanted. I went with pulled pork, rib tips, coleslaw, potato salad and cornbread muffins. They then helped me determine how much of each I would need. Everything sounded great over the phone.

Yesterday I went and picked it up. After I paid for the food, they brought out a huge bag with three large foil pans. I knew I had too much food, there was no way my team was going to eat all of that. Then the lady told me there was more. I ended up having to have two of their employees help me carry it all out to the truck. I had 10 pounds of tips, 8 pounds of pulled pork, 3 quarts of coleslaw, 3 quarts of potato salad and 24 cornbread muffins. Yea, there was no way they were going to eat all of that.

Out of all the people eating, I was the only guy. 18 women are not going to eat close to a pound of meat each. That would be enough food if I were having 10 guys over for an all day football festÂ… maybe. That meant there was a ton of left over food. I offered it to my peers, to my bosses, to my bossÂ’s peers, to the secretaries in the front office, security, etc. I still had at least 8 pounds of left over meat, and at least one quart each of coleslaw and potato salad. Since I was the one that ordered it, I got to take it home.

Now as you all may remember, I loves me some good bar-b-que. This, however, is not good bar-b-que. DonÂ’t get me wrong, it tasted just fine. Actually the pulled pork was excellent, but this is nothing like the homemade stuff I make or some of those mom and pop rib shacks IÂ’ve visited. The tips were kind of tough and the sauce was a little on the weak side. Now donÂ’t get me wrong, that doesnÂ’t mean IÂ’m not going to eat it. It just means that IÂ’ve had much better.

For two nights now weÂ’ve been eating on bar-b-que pork. They boys are happy, IÂ’m happy; Ktreva really could live with out the new and strange body odors that are emitting from us. Now if youÂ’ll excuse me, I need to go hose the sauce off of the keyboard. Typing and shoving rib tips in my mouth at the same time is kind of messy.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:59 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I guess I tempted the fates. Almost a year to the date of my last visit to Sensitivity class I find out today IÂ’m being sent again. This time is utter bullshite. One of my employees did something wrong. Per our cooperate guidelines I was supposed to take some pretty drastic measures. After reviewing the case I felt my employeeÂ’s actions where a result of improperly communicated procedures.

Desperate to find an alternate method of dealing with the problem, I found a loophole that would satisfy corporate and have no punitive consequences on my employee. I.e. it ended up being a stern warning of “Don’t do that again”. Perfect huh? Everyone would be happy right? Wrong!

Corporate didnÂ’t have a problem with it. My employee on the other hand felt it was unfair. She felt I was being unreasonable. Okay, there really were only two choices in the matter. I either take the severe route the corporate dictated or use the loophole I discovered, (Which according to 5 people in upper management only I would have found). The corporate way left her with one foot out the door and no chance for promoting, getting a raise or collecting any bonuses for a year. My method changed nothing, except her access to a region on the systems. Yep, IÂ’m being unreasonable.

This employee got together with another employee that has been having issues and filed a complaint against me. They may be legitimate about some of their concerns, but why it wasnÂ’t a problem 4 weeks ago, but it is now I have no idea. Oh wait, it all came to head last Friday. (Yea, they brought up issues that happened between July and early November.) Since my company really doesnÂ’t give any protection to management if something like this happens, itÂ’s their word against mine and I lose.

The dates of my next trip havenÂ’t been determined yet. Once I know for sure I will let you know, hopefully IÂ’ll have a laptop by then so I can live blog my experiences.

Want to know what really burns me up. One of their complaints was that I donÂ’t appreciate any of my employees and do nothing to make them feel like they belong. Yet since November IÂ’ve been planning an appreciation lunch for them tomorrow. IÂ’ve included all of them on deciding what day we were having it and what food is going to be served. ItÂ’s being fully catered in. Right now IÂ’m half tempted to call the company doing it and canceling. If it wasnÂ’t for the fact I think that would do more harm then good, I would.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:01 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Well, I’ll be damned; the meteorologists actually got one right. Heck this morning on the TV one of the local guys even made the comment, “We finally made an accurate prediction on a winter storm.” I just got in from shoveling 13 inches of snow off of my driveway and sidewalk. We don’t own a snow blower mainly because we don’t have enough pavements to justify the purchase. Top that off with the rest of the day I’m hurting.

Yes, I went to work. I loaded up the family in Janine and headed out. We had no trouble navigating the roads what so everÂ… then again a couple of times Ktreva had to point out I wasnÂ’t on the road anymore. Damn snow made all the landmarks disappear and I couldnÂ’t tell where the edge of the road was. Still, we couldnÂ’t tell we werenÂ’t on the road and we had no trouble what so ever. After dropping off the boys we headed to work, I even took the scenic tour so we could view the idiots that where in accidents. There were 7 cars ditches, 3 rear-endings, 2 intersection t-bones and 1 jack knifed Tractor-trailer. . The idiots who think that four wheel drive means they donÂ’t have to be careful were out in force When I stopped at the gas station to get something to drink, the people working thought I was insane for enjoying the weather.

Of course I get to work and a quarter of my staff has called off. “It’s too dangerous to drive.” Yeah, yeah, yeah whatever. 3 of the people that called off drive 4-wheel drive SUVs and one lives less then a mile from work. They just didn’t want to come in and used the snow as an excuse. My employees that did show up even thought they were over-reacting. Especially since two of them told everyone the day before they where going to call off. It just annoys me that some people have a lack of work ethic. The ones that did show up today had a cakewalk day. I let them work on what ever they wanted and all the management got together and brought in pizza for them for lunch.

Now there is some downside to this weather. We have a new plowing company at work and they did a crappy job of cleaning off the parking lot. Not only did the not clean the entrances out, but they started late and plowed a lot of people into parking spaces. I spent most of the day helping employees at work get their cars out of snow banks, drifts and plow piles. I dug and pushed out 19 cars from 7:00AM to 2:30 PM. Some of my employees started worrying that I would hurt myself and wanted to know why no one else was helping. The told me that I should stop. As I told them, if I was stuck in the snow I would want someone to help me. Thus I see people that need help, IÂ’m going to help them. ItÂ’s the golden rule; treat others as you would like to be treated.

Right now IÂ’m sore from head to two. So if youÂ’ll excuse me, IÂ’m going to go medicate with some Jack DanielÂ’s.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:57 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I have been conducting interviews for a week and a half now. If IÂ’m lucky I will be finished by Thursday. At one point today I was ready to start hitting my head against the desk in the middle of an interview. The person being interviewed didnÂ’t even have a clue as to the position they applied for. I almost yelled at the individual to get out of the room, fortunately I had momentary control over my mouth and just smiled.

No, this person is not getting the job. Sadly enough, they weren't the worst one either. Even worse, they scored in the top 20 percent of candidates interviewed.

If IÂ’m lucky I will be done by Thursday. If it goes any longer I think I might lobotomize myself mid-interview with my pencil.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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For two weeks now IÂ’ve had an issue at work. There is one bathroom there that use when I need to empty my bowels. ItÂ’s the largest bathroom in the building, and the least used. It has four stalls and three urinals. For five years IÂ’ve been using the same bathroom and the same stall with out a problem. That is until two weeks ago.

I walked into the bathroom getting ready for my mid-morning constitutional. Heading into my stall to do my deed I stop dead in my tracks. All over the floor, the toilet and the seat is urine. GAH! Okay, I go to the next stall and itÂ’s fine. For one day I can use a different stall. The next day I return. Again someone has pissed all over the toilet and the seat. When I say pissed all over, it doesnÂ’t look like they intended to give the exterior of the toilet a golden shower. It looked like they had no control over the beginning and end of the stream. I head into the next stall and again it is covered in urine.

This has been going on for two weeks. What the hell?!?!?! First I want to know what guy would use a stall when there are perfectly good urinals available? I donÂ’t want to hear about two guys shouldnÂ’t pee in urinals next to each other. Bullshit, thatÂ’s what they are for, there are separators and at many places IÂ’ve seen guys lined up waiting to find any open urinal, mainly at football games. Now that isnÂ’t the case here. There is never enough traffic in this bathroom for all three urinals to be taken. There are not a lot of guys in the entire office, let alone in that part of the building. Whoever is doing this has some kind of issue with using a urinal.

Secondly I understand guys miss and at times there are drops on the floor. It happens, peeing standing up has its drawbacks. ItÂ’s either the floor or our pants. This was no one or two drops on the floor or the occasional post sex miss-spray. This guy has serious control issues. He gets it everywhere. ItÂ’s almost like heÂ’s afraid to touch his own unit in order to aim the damn thing. You can get away with that at a urinal, but when aiming for a toilet bowl you need to use some control. They donÂ’t aim themselves.

Thirdly, and most importantlyÂ… WHY THE HELL IS HE NOT CLEANING UP AFTER HIMSELF?!?!?! For the love of all that is good and holy if your going to piss on the seat and the toilet, take some farking toilet paper and wipe it up. If youÂ’re not going to do that, at least use the same toilet so that those of us that have to shite can use the other stalls. One day all four stalls were covered in urine drops! The cleaning crew only hits the bathrooms twice a day. Once around noon and again at night after everyone has left. Personally, I donÂ’t want to walk around with turd fighting against my sphincter for 2-3 hours until the cleaning crew comes in and makes the toilets useable again. I also shouldnÂ’t have to walk across the building looking at the busier bathrooms for an open stall.

The perpetrator is an evil vile person. They have to be doing this intentionally with malice in their heart. I think they are trying to mark the bathroom as their territory and discourage others from using it. I donÂ’t know why, but they must be trying to keep people from laying the big stinky while at work. Let me just say that nothing, NOTHING is going to stop the shite spewing forth from me!

Posted by: Contagion at 06:23 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Is there anything people wonÂ’t steel? For three years IÂ’ve had candy at my desk. I set it out to show my appreciation to everyone that works hard. It started Christmas of 2002. Boopie was in Cub Scouts. They had a fundraiser selling popcorn. The Pack ordered some extra items to sell at various events besides what orders the boys took. At the end of the sale they had this tin that was 6 by 10 inches that had popcorn coated in chocolate. Instead of letting the troop take the hit, I shelled out the money and bought it.

Since I hate chocolate covered popcorn, I took it to work and let everyone help themselves to it the week between Christmas and New Years. ThatÂ’s when I discovered that Chocolate made for a much nicer work environment for me. After the popcorn was gone (about 2 days) I started buying various candies to put in the tin. Hershey miniatures and kisses, Halloween candy, ETC. ItÂ’s kind of like a trademark of mine to have chocolate at my desk.

Yesterday at work, one of my employees asked my why I hadnÂ’t put out the candy. I looked around and it wasnÂ’t where I left it. Since IÂ’ve been known to forget to set it out, I checked my desk drawer where I store it at night. (The cleaning crew likes to clean out the tin as well.) It wasnÂ’t in my drawer. What the hell? I looked around to see if it was moved or if something was set on top of it. It wasnÂ’t anywhere!

A couple of years ago the same thing happened, but some people took it as a prank. They returned it a couple of hours later when I noticed it was missing. Figuring the same thing happened, I was pretty sure it would turn up. Today it was still gone. So I started canvassing the usual suspects to see if they where playing a joke. No one had any idea where it went.

Since it now counts as a legitimate theft, I had to make a report with security. I laughed the whole time, because I felt stupid reporting a stolen tin. It was a ratty old tin, and the lid to it is still in my desk drawer, so I have no idea why anyone would want it. The missing candy doesnÂ’t bother me too much because I bought it to give away, but I am a bit annoyed that someone felt the need to take the tin. ItÂ’s just a senseless theft of an item that really has no value what so ever.

Well whoever has it, I hope they enjoy it. But if they are thinking the candy in there magically reappears they are going to be disappointed.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:36 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I picked up a new “toy” over the weekend. While in Green Bay at one of the Packer memorabilia shops, they had a red coach’s “Challenge flag”. It’s the red flag that a coach throws out on the field if they disagree with a ruling of the officials. I just had to get one! It was only a couple of dollars and I figured I’d have a lot of fun with it. Sure enough, I was right!

This morning while getting ready for work, I spotted my flag and tucked it into my pocket. I just couldnÂ’t wait to get a chance to throw it. It didnÂ’t take long for that to happen. While talking about my weekend with some of my football loving friends at work, one of them made the comment that their winless team was going to make it to the Super Bowl. Before they were finished with their sentence that flag was flying through the air. Of course all of the football fans found this hilarious. The non-football spectators had no idea what was going on.

All day I kept whipping out the flag every time I wanted to challenge anything anyone said. Then I used it at the wrong time… the middle of a meeting. We were having a meeting going over new policies and procedures. One of my peers felt that a new procedure would hurt the department. The look on their faces when that red flag landed on the table was priceless. However, the humor was lost when I had to explain to everyone what it was. Of course the obligatory “This really isn’t the place for those kind of antics” talks followed. Eh, I explained it was meant to be fun and liven things up a little. No one was mad, and I didn’t get in any real trouble.

All I can think about is the next time IÂ’m at a football party and I get to start flinging it around when the officials make calls I donÂ’t like. IÂ’m going to have way too much fun with it.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:52 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I just got back from a business trip to Chicago. I’ve been there since Monday, hence the complete lack of posting. Work sent me for a class on diversity. (IE don’t discriminate against people different then you.) It was painfully evident after the first couple of hours that this class was misnamed. It should have been called, “If you are a non-disabled white heterosexual male 30-55, you have everything handed to you awareness class.” The class of 25 had a good mix of people in age, race, religion and gender. I’d throw in sexual orientation, but I don’t know what everyone’s was.

This class did more damage then good. ThatÂ’s not just my opinion, but also that of at least 10 others that took the class. The class came across as saying that even though now you donÂ’t look at race, age or gender when making decisions; you need to start. If you have four people applying for a job, it doesnÂ’t matter who is the best qualified for the position. If they all meet the minimum requirement for the position, you need to then look at what race/gender/age you need to make your employees more diversified.

My jaw about hit the table. IÂ’ve always been a person that didnÂ’t look at race, gender, age or anything else like that. When I assigned tasks, jobs or gave a promotion I based it on who was the best for the job. Who was the most qualified, who would be able to do the work. Apparently I was wrong. IÂ’m supposed to make sure I have a mix of employees. Thus the next time I do promotions since I donÂ’t have a male employee, if one puts in for it and just barely makes the minimum requirements, I should promote them over anyone else. IÂ’m sorry, thatÂ’s bullshite! I donÂ’t care if the person is an albino Creole homosexual missing two legs and an eye. If they are the best qualified for the job, they get it.

Apparently, IÂ’m wrong. ItÂ’s not about who is best qualified, itÂ’s about what race, gender, age, religion, disability or sexual orientation who gets the job. IÂ’m very disappointed in my company right now. Here I thought I worked for a company that none of that mattered. A company that valued the employee for ability, skill and knowledge over anything else.

I hate being wrong.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:51 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Okay, the interviewing portion was finished yesterday. I had to make my selection today. This afternoon I offered the position to the individuals that fit the best into the position. That also means I started giving feedback to those I had to turn down. This means I had to tell them why I didnÂ’t select them. When I give feedback of this variety I do not like to just tell someone that I didnÂ’t feel they where the best candidate for the position. I like to tell them why I felt they werenÂ’t the best candidate.

As IÂ’m breaking the bad news to them, I then go over their strengths and their weaknesses. When I was turned down for jobs in the past, this is what I wanted. As part of that feedback I also like to help guide them to fix those weaknesses. Since I havenÂ’t given feedback on a rejection in a long time, ten years if you must know, I was a bit rusty. Thankfully I picked up a phrase from Tammi to help in my process.

Many of these same individuals will put in for the same position the next time it posts, and I really want a strong pool to pull from. At the end of each feedback session I would say, “What I need you to do for me is (insert task here)” Such as, “You where almost perfect for the position. You had all the personal, coaching and technical skills for the job. Unfortunately your production prevents me from offering you the position. If you can improve your production, you will be a serious threat to the competition. What I need you to do for me is to go out there, not let this interview get you down and increase your production. If that means working with your supervisor or peers to learn how to streamline what you do, then that is what you need to do. I really hope that the next time I interview for this position, I want to see you in here and make my decision next time even more difficult.”

Everyone that I gave feedback to today seemed to legitimately appreciate what I had to say. Even the ones that werenÂ’t a strong candidate told me they appreciated my honesty and approach. Next time I have to go through this, I really hope some of these people fix their issues and give me a stronger pool of candidates.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:49 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Good on ya! I've always wanted that type of feedback from my interviews, unfortunately I never get it.

Posted by: oddybobo at April 11, 2006 05:02 PM (6Gm0j)

2 Good for you! That was excellent... I think one of the many signs of a good leader.

Posted by: Bou at April 11, 2006 09:09 PM (iHxT3)

3 Wish I had you interview me!

Posted by: vw bug at April 12, 2006 05:18 AM (Oo6vx)

4 SOunds like this new position is a perfect fit for you!

Posted by: Richmond at April 12, 2006 12:02 PM (e8QFP)

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Well the interviewing process is done. My post of interviewing tips was written after the first day, I really should have waiting until the end of the process before writing them. There are more tips to add.

-Calm down. If you are so nervous that you shake from head to toe during the ENTIRE interview, that does not give the best impression of you. We all know that the person being interviewed is going to be nervous. I take that into consideration, but when you are sitting in your chair shaking so hard that I can feel it through the floor into my chair and itÂ’s vibrating the desk where IÂ’m writing notes, that is NOT good.

-For the love of god, stay on topic. When we ask you a question, we want an answer pertaining to the question, not something that is completely off topic. IE. If the question asked is “As part of the position you will have to give negative feedback, have you ever given negative feedback and if so how did you go about doing it?” Do not answer: That’s a tough question, when I was learning how to do my last job I always had to do this task I wasn’t trained on. In order to do it I would look up the information in the manuals or ask my peers how to get the information. In doing so I taught myself how to do the job correctly.” WHAT?!?!?!?! Where did that answer come from? That’s a decent answer to a completely different question, but for the question asked it sucked!

-If asked what your greatest weakness is, the worst answer you can give is; “I don’t have any” Trust me, everyone has a weakness. When you say I don’t have one, it sounds very arrogant and egotistical. First this is a loaded question; it’s a BS question, it’s a question that interviewers ask to see what kind of personality you have. The best way to answer this is to find something that you aren’t the strongest at, state that and then turn it into a strength. The best answer I received to this question was: “My greatest weakness is that I’m over analytical. I will take extra time to analyze something I’m doing to make sure that it is done correctly. This has caused my production to drop off. At the same time I have near perfect quality. By analyzing every aspect of what I don’t make mistakes. It’s rare that something is returned to me for doing it wrong. However, after over analyzing everything I know exactly what I’m doing and what I’m looking for, so I no longer have to research as much and my production has increased.” My god, that is damn near a textbook answer.

-Do not lie, mislead or give false information. This is so important I shouldn’t have to tell people, yet out of the interviews I did I had no less then two people do exactly that during the interviews. I don’t know if they didn’t think I’d check on what they where telling me or if they were overstating their experience. Either way, when the interviewer finds out that you lied, mislead or gave false information, it’s more then likely going to move your resume to the “not likely” pile.

-Do not chew gum, suck on candy, or pop breath mints during the interview. ItÂ’s unprofessional and again gives a poor impression of you.

-Perfume/cologne is okay in moderation. If you wear so much that my eyes start watering, you have too much on. Scents should be subtle and barely noticeable, just hint of scent. Not a club of stink pretty. On the same note, do not drink a gallon of mouthwash before the interview. Sitting across a table from someone that smells like they ate a Christmas tree when they speak is rather distracting.

-Confidence is good, over confidence is bad, arrogance is just wrong. I interviewed a person that came in so over confident/arrogant that the position was theirs that even though they are in the running; itÂ’s whatÂ’s keeping them from being a sure thing. IÂ’ve never spoke with this person before; I really donÂ’t know what they are like. If this was just something they did for the interview it can be forgiven, but if this individual is like that on a daily basis I donÂ’t want them working for me. I donÂ’t need a prima donna.

-For the love of all that is good, do not interrupt the interviewer while they are asking a question or speaking. Wait until they are finished, and then ask. Unless it is an emergency, i.e. the room is on fire and for some reason they donÂ’t notice, you can wait until they are done speaking.

-Finally, there may be a thing as too much detail, but I have yet to see it in an interview. Remember, you are trying to convince these people you are the right person for the job. As long as you are on topic, (see above) go into as much detail as possible with your answers. You need to impress the interviewer with your knowledge and skills. I had one person go into so much detail, they where teaching me things. Yes, this person is a finalist.

If any of these tips helps even one person get a job, thatÂ’s great. I think some really qualified individuals may not get the job because they had some poor interviewing skills. They may even be the best person for the job, but they did not convince me that they where. That is what the interview is; making sure that the candidate is the best for the job. If you canÂ’t convince me of that, then you arenÂ’t going to get it.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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