Monday Vents & Celebrations

[twinmomma]

Vent: So much for my "normal" week! I now have to balance a website QA project and another super hot request from my bosses. Basically, they want an audit of every marketing piece I've put out in the last year. FML.

[twinmomma]

k3am anyway for you to call out the fact that this correspondence has been going back and forth and you were given incorrect info from THEIR team? I'd want to cover my own butt in that regard, after you get through this deal.

[akafred]

k3am, what a bitch!

[xctsclrx]

k3am, Wait do they actually offer a re-fresher course on this? As in her comment could have been a legitimate question? Do you have to maintain a relationship with these people? This would be one of those situations I would do face to face if possible and then send a follow up email restating was was said in the conversation. Tone is very hard to read in email and I never email if angry. It always comes across. I wouldn't say we are never going t sell your product again, because never say never and I would definitely not take the refresher course.

If the reply has to be in email form I would say something like:

person's name,

I will proceed with escalating this to xxxx. ( and whatever else you need to address)

VR
K3am

[mellym]

We had a fairly uneventful weekend. The weather was unseasonably warm on Saturday so we went for a hike in the woods. Just what my soul needed. Kids played outside with the neighbor kids while I read my book in the sunshine for a glorious two hours. I'm to the really uncomfortable part of pregnancy where everything hurts and no sleep. We had two false alarms where I was getting painful contractions for 2+ hours and then they just stopped. Doctor said this can be common after multiple pregnancies. More anxiety for me feeling like a crazy person and I won't know when I'm really in labor.

My other vent is that DH always checks out when I'm not feeling well. I'm hanging out on the couch because I'm legit having contractions or in so much pelvic pain that I need to take a break off my feet. So he does too. Then the kids need something and it's me helping them, answering questions, making decisions on their snack or whatever, going outside with them, etc. But if he has the sniffles, he's completely out of commission while I'm taking care of the household and to-do list. Trying to decide if this is just a Mom thing or has to do with our personalities.

186momx,sorry about your mom. Hope they caught it early and will have a treatment plan in place soon.

supertrooper1, sorry about your dad.

k3am,+1 for stress/angry cleaning.

[k3am]

twinmomma, I have email documentation if I ever need it. My boss was annoyed that I even bothered attempting to sell the product. (And really, I didn't. The client asked if we had it. I said yes, but it's not a great product, if you have it elsewhere, you're welcome to continue using it and we can do a collateral carve out for it, and they still wanted it. I let them know we suck, but they didn't listen.)


xctsclrx, I don't work with this department very much. The person it needed to be escalated to used to be someone I needed to stay on his good side in one capacity, but he's moved out of that role. They don't have a real course on the product, let alone a refresher. I guarantee at best it would be a sit down with him where he hands out the same documentation that we have on the intranet that was confusing.

I had a face to face with the person it needed to be escalated to. I let him know that I'm admittedly not a pro on this product set because we rarely use it and that I'd been reliant on the liaison to assist as far back as my initial conversation with the client, etc. He at least knows that I wasn't just half-assing it and hoping it worked and will be "having a discussion" with the liaison. I'm sure it will make her love me even more. (I insulted her in a past life, I'm sure. From day 1, she's been rude to me, but apparently, that's just her general demeanor.)

[erinshelley21]

186momx, I'm sorry about your mom. Hopefully her doctors will get a solid plan in place quickly.
k3am, the lady in that other department sounds bitchy. I don't think you're unreasonable to expect guidance and I'd be really irritated too since they've known from the beginning what you were coming to them for. My only responses are snarky and passive aggressive so I'm not much help right now.

[186momx]

supertrooper1, Yes, this Fred Meyer now has the click list and car pick up but I wanted to browse and try to do some x-mas shopping. They also just finished remodeling so it was the re-grand opening so lots of fun deals and good prices. Plus I wanted some alone time. I also ran into like 5 different people so kept having conversations while shopping.

Mom news is new. She went in last week because this spot on her side where your bra sits was bugging her. They removed it and said 10-14 days for results. She got the results in 48 hours and it is a rare form of skin cancer. I think it is Metastatic Melanoma but I'm not sure as my dad just said it was rare. I'm hoping she gets more info and into the right doctor quickly as dad did say that her doctor thinks they caught it in the really early stages but she needs more tissue removed than what he did in the office. She also was diagnosed as pre-diabetic when she went in.

k3am, I agree with twinmomma and you need to CYA and respond with I've been talking to X the last month and she just now said she can't help me and I need to talk with you. No I don't need a class on this and would have jumped straight to talking with you if X would have told me she couldn't help me on 9/16.

[rere]

Oct 23, 2017 11:56:00 GMT -5 k3am said:

186momx, Dr Google is a mindtrip. But for some people, it's helpful. I spiraled after both of DD's diagnosis, but I really feel it helped me be more prepared for what came next and I was able to deal with it better. People cope how they can.

So sorry about your mom! Never Dr. Google. My doc banned me from it. I always diagnose myself with the absolute worst possible case. It can really mess with you.

[2chatter]

k3am - I am pretty direct, so it would be a convo like "Hey Tom, I just wanted to follow up on your email. Thanks for jumping in - but based on the servicing I have gotten to this point, I don't plan to offer this product to other clients. I thought walking you through the evolution of how we got to this point with this client might be valuable to you as the (product owner? Sales desk lead?)." And I would call out their crappy documentation and service. And ask if another client puts you in the same position what they would recommend.

I am all about a mix of CYA, cathartic venting, collaboration and process improvement - I just cannot leave these things alone.

[2chatter]

So my weekend was unreal. I ended up kid free Friday and had dinner and drinks with friends, while one of the husbands got all our kids from a party. It was great!! (I finished DD's costume just in time and she won the costume contest - whew!).

Saturday was sports and I hosted a cupcake wars holiday themed play date after lunch with mom/sister/her brother.

Then Saturday night we ended up at a brand new totally in demand club - because we didn't know where to go and a friend's brother had a table. It was ... an experience. There was so much going on we barely even drank, just danced and people watched.

I slept until noon on Sunday. It was blissful. DH and DS had a great camping trip and the pics were absurdly cute. DH and I had a date night to the engagement party for BIL on Sunday night.

I was super ready for Monday workday and the usual routine!!

[waverly]

Celebration- weekend was for the most part great to see everyone.

Vent-My sister was stressing me the F out, but she did apologize. And my mom says she drives everyone crazy especially for the last year. Like her husband is super annoyed with her too.

Vent- work person thinks she can vent to me for like 2 hours since boss is gone. I can't get anything done.

Quick pick my next task- bank, statistics or schedule. Don't they all sound exciting. I have 2 more hours and go.

[mommyatty]

waverly , Schedule ftw!

I've been working too much. I just read a sign at the airport a drive was holding. Thought it said "Appellant". It said "Applegate."

[waverly]

mommyatty, I did do the schedule. I did all the way up to Christmas and then two people are retiring the end of the year, so I couldn't do New Years. I like to try to get the holidays done together, but I have to hire 2 new people first.

[traveltheworld]

erinshelley21, sorry about your aunt. That's really sucky.

I'm still on vacation, but have lots of vents - I know, FWP.

1. My kids are exhausting. DS is extremely inquisitive and chatty, which is great, but I'm an introvert by nature and need some "me" time, which I'm not getting. DD sticks to me like glue and refuses to let DH do anything for her. I'm exhausted.

2. Now that I'm nearing the end of our vacation and have to go back to real life, I'm suddenly having angst about our life. We moved to a new city 6 months ago for my new job - since then it's been a whirlwind of finding schools, buying a house, getting settled, etc. But that's almost all done now, so life is supposed to be back to "normal". I'm now realizing we don't have anyone to hang out with - we still haven't made any friends in the new city. What if this continues for the next months/years???

3. DH's department hired a new person that he has to train, so he has been going back to our old city a lot more often than stipulated in his contract (which is 5 days/month). He stays with his brother whenever he is there, and I went to his brother's condo before we came on vacation and was stunned at how messy/dirty the place was. DH essentially has a tiny sofa bed in the corner of one room. So now I feel terrible that he has to stay there.

[akafred]

traveltheworld, I totally hear you about being introverted and vacations being hard with an extrovert kid!

You WILL find some friends to hang out with! Keep trying .

[twinmomma]

Oct 23, 2017 12:15:05 GMT -5 twinmomma said:

Vent: So much for my "normal" week! I now have to balance a website QA project and another super hot request from my bosses. Basically, they want an audit of every marketing piece I've put out in the last year. FML.

Ok, this vent continues. I worked on this audit project until 10 PM last night, and it's still not done. And no one will tell me what it's for or why the executive team wants it. It's stressing me out to not know what this is for. They basically want to see everything I've ever created for the company in my time here. I'm freaking out about it, thinking of worst case scenarios, which is ridiculous because they're always complimenting my work and giving me more responsibilities. It's just such a bizarre, last minute request, and with no context I can't tell if I'm giving them as much detail as they want/need or if there's a better way to put all the info together. I'm literally screen-shotting everything I possibly can and dumping it into powerpoint slides. Ugh.  

[2chatter]

twinmomma - audit type asks are the worst. Can you just index hyperlinks? That's what I do. And I don't provide previous versions until prompted. For me, less is more on the front side because more generates irrelevant bunny trails that consume my entire life. Hope they clue you in!!

[twinmomma]

2chatter, They specifically requested screen shots. They don't even want the complete documents, just snap shots of everything. It's so weird. When I've done audits like this in the past, it's to confirm compliance language in all marketing, so they need the complete documents. This clearly isn't that.

[erinshelley21]

twinmomma maybe you're gonna get a big fat raise !

[twinmomma]

erinshelley21, I can only hope! I'd probably cry. LOL Our finances are just starting to get back on track after I took a pay cut to accept this job, so a raise would be amazing!

[waverly]

Sexual harassment was reported to me, not by one of my employees but someone lateral to me about the boss. The problem is it was years ago. She doesn't want to report it, and she wants me to keep it confidential. According to the handbook if someone wants it confidential it has to be kept that way and it says the employee has to report it, not me. So I want to burn the place down (figuratively speaking of course), but I can't.

She claims that he is retaliating against her for being in a relationship and she told him 2 years in advance that she will leave in 2 years. I personally know she is telling the truth on what he said to her because he says other inappropriate things, and I have literally said to him that's inappropriate and he is like sorry. But I am not sure if he is retaliating because he has other points on why he is not happy with her performance, and it was years ago. Also, it is dumb to tell your boss you are leaving in 2 years. The standard 2 weeks notice will suffice.

His main claim was she was not following her job description which he never gave to her she claims, and she said it's true she wasn't following it. He has also never reviewed her or told her before there was a problem. I think it was relating to another employee that he always protects and first employee has been complaining to boss about second employee for about a year +. First employee is also very needy and needs a lot of management, coaching, which he used to do, but is now I think he is tired of it, so now I have had to hear her complaints by virtue solely of the location of my desk probably. She takes up about 5 hours of my week with her issues, and I am not even supposed to be managing her. I am though because he won't and I am stuck in a space with her so I have no choice.

I don't know if there is a point to this since I can't do anything. I can't report something for her... I am not 100% sure why he is being crappy to her. I know she isn't very flexible in her thoughts and has had some issues in her job and is very needy. It could be that or the other employee issue or the relationship issue. How am I supposed to know? ETA- she doesn't know for sure it is because of her relationship either.  As in he has not said anything that alluded or confirmed it.  Just based on the timing that when she got serious with her now H, that boss started being crappy to her. 

I may delete parts of this later, so the whole story isn't out there for employee. Any advice?

[k3am]

waverly, no advice. unless you're close otherwise, I wouldn't engage with her, since knowing but not being able to do anything is frustrating. If you're close otherwise and it's just a vent session, then I'd be more inclined to listen.

[waverly]

k3am, we are close but not really because I want to be close if that makes any sense. More because she likes to chatter and we have each other's backs. I am an introvert and don't really want to talk a lot at work. But we don't dislike each other or anything. It's just a lot of time spent on her issues. So she thinks we are close, but I think we should be less close lol. And I give off a ton of social cues, and sometimes she just ignores them and keeps talking.

I guess I will think of it as just venting. I was asking her about the conversation she had with the boss about something else, because he is dragging other people into his issues that he had with her about her asking for a raise. And I just hated being dragged into the issues, and was trying to figure out how to respond to him and see where it all originated. And that brought this up.