Work vents

[akafred]

I have 2:

1) There is a woman who sits next to me and OMG she talks all day long. If I use headphones, and she’ll motion or talk louder, and most of her interruptions are things like, “I need another cup of coffee” or “I left my phone in the car.” Saying, “I’m sorry, I’m just super swamped” helps for 2 minutes. The rest of the times she will completely miss a point and then argue. Like yesterday afternoon she asked whether I thought it better to lease or buy the company car, and when I said lease (not normally, but the company car deal specifically), she argued. I don’t care what you do, lady. Why did you suck me down this vortex of hell?

2) We hired a Tableau expert. He is not very helpful. I need to do a complex waterfall chart. Instead of saying he doesn’t know how, he spends time telling me he doesn’t “believe in” waterfall charts and I should do a different kind of chart instead. Which, in this case, would not have told the story I need to tell anyway. But even if he is 100% correct, I need to do the complex waterfall because that is what my director and VP want to see. So I either can do it in Tableau where my data is and the rest of my visualizations, or I can do it in Excel. But I have to do it. Sigh.

[covergirl82]

My department manages the merit increase process, and it is merit planning right now. Because our merit budget was so small this year, it was approved to assign increases to employees based on a couple factors, including performance. Employees who are low performers are not getting an increase. Of course, once that was communicated to leaders, we got inundated with all kinds of questions/requests saying that miraculously, in the last month, their low performer is actually meeting expectations now, and a few were even said to be high performers now. And integrity is supposed to be one of our company values...

[xctsclrx]

akafred, ugh both of those people sound super fun.

I am willing to bet that if the guy just took ownership of the fact that he didn't know how to do what you were asking and offered to either A) figure out how to do it or B) help come up with a different solution (not knowing it was a requirement) you wouldn't have lost respect for him. I don't understand the "I get admit failure; lack of knowledge or mistakes" attitude. I have so much more respect for my bosses and coworkers that will own when they don't know something.

My PM just announced to our program that we are about to work a lot of unpaid overtime for the next few weeks. No one is excited about this. At this point I am over it. I told my boss that if he wants me to work OT I have to do it from the house. Luckily he agreed.

[phdmomma]

My visa to China for work travel is not the one that I requested. I requested one that is good for at least a year with multiple entries. The consulate decided to grant me a single entry visa that is good for the next 90. Which means that I will need to do this again in the summer when I travel there for work again. Although I am glad that I used a visa expediter and didn't drive 3 hours each way to the consulate.

[waverly]

akafred- I had that same lady. She used to take up like 2 hours of my day everyday. When I started coming in later due to dropping before care then she would go harass my staff as they were trying to open. She had a huge fight with the director and pressured me for months to hire someone that I couldn’t hire. She doesn’t manage people for a reason. Finally I threw a huge fit and moved offices and luckily she retired shortly after.

My work vent the file cabinet that the director accidentally dropped in the maintenance man (luckily he didn’t break anything) is still lying in the middle of my office.

[cosmowife]

How do you deal with a gender pay gap at work? How do you even begin to find out if there is a gap? I have a feeling that there is a gap (a large one) but have no way to actually go about figuring it out, let alone dealing with it. It has been hard to come into work lately. I’m beginning to realize that perhaps I don’t have a long term future at my company, but it works for now and is a good fit at this point in my life. However, I want more out of a career, and I just don’t think that my work is willing to give it to me. I was promised a “key employee” perk for at least two years (some sort of profit sharing program), but they were never able to figure out how to get the program off the ground so now there is nothing. They’ve just told me that they’ll bonus higher instead. However, bonuses are completely subjective and I have no idea how much I will bonus until the end of the year, which is stressful. And I don’t know how much they bonus the guys here and have no way of finding out. We are a small company (30 people).

[twinmomma]

I'm so sick of trying to plan things with no budget. An open checkbook sounds great in theory, until we plan something we think is reasonable and get totally shot down. It wastes so much time when we do all this research and prep work, but find out after everything is done that we have to start over with a smaller number in mind.

[rere]

I have people walking into my office 1000 times a day. I am clearly working. I sit with my hands still perched on my keyboard and just turn to acknowledge, yet they still keep talking. The worst culprit being my boss. Friday the office was relatively empty and I was amazed at the amount of work I can get done with no interruptions.

I hate that we are still limited on our hours. I have a crazy next 2 weeks with a couple of later evening events, trainings, meetings, class, yet still have to keep within my hours. It would be nice to just get what I need done, get through these weeks, and take the time during fall break when my calendar is empty. But that would make too much sense.

[covergirl82]

cosmowife, given the size of the company, I'm not sure how successful you'll be approaching it as a gender pay issue, especially without much information to back it up. However, if you trust the HR person, you could start there and share concerns about your pay in general. You may be better off looking for a different job with a company that has established pay programs and more career growth opportunities.

[ilovelucyvv]

My boss checked into the hospital last week and left me in charge for this week as well. I have no idea what the reason is or timeframe and it is not any of my business if she doesn't want to tell me. However, when I told everyone that she called out all week and left me in charge I have gotten tons of inquiries about what is going on. I am not even supposed to tell people she is in the hospital. We are all very worried about her. Since it is the end of the calendar year there is tons of stuff that fell in my lap.

[k3am]

My coworker's cancer is back. She was Stage 4 previously, we don't know what her prognosis or game plan is, but everyone is devastated. She is our primary operations person, and she has one support person who has a 3-week vacation next month (it's her first vacation here EVER, to her home country, and everything is fully paid in advance and non-refundable). My analyst is fully trained to run operations. Her response "well, if I absolutely have to in a worst case scenario, I guess I can assist." %*&(* what part of this do you think ISN'T a worst case scenario. In my mind, the only answer out of her mouth should have been "we'll make it work." Seriously, what is wrong with her???"

[phdmomma]

And fire drill during class today in the rain....I am the wet.

[mustardseed2007]

Some tax people have dropped the ball on something and my mind is absolutely blown by it. Both the dropped ball and the  refusal to take responsibility now and the inability to move over to - ok well what do we need to do to fix it.

It's not an end of the world situation but it's a terribly negligent thing on their part. 

[k3am]

mustardseed2007, why is that no one is willing to just step up and say WE'LL GET IT DONE??? It drives me bonkers.

I'm a "we'll get it done" person. It may not be perfect, but it will get done. Maybe I'm just doing things wrong.

[waverly]

k3am, IDK and why won't that woman help out when her co-worker has cancer??

We had someone at our insurance office way back when I used to work there, not submit policies to underwriting- not sure if it was disorganization because we found paper applications in bags under her desk. Then when people started asking she would write it up again like half done, give up on that and then copy and paste things to forge a policy to fax to them. Not to worry the insurance company would have covered them regardless because obviously it was on our end, but holy fraud batman.

[186momx]

The apartment above our office building got a new tenant and all I've listened to do is thumping and crashing it is driving me crazy. They moved in last weekend so giving them this week to get their crap arranged before calling and complaining. We go through this which each new tenant!
I'm also working on a 2016 books for a new client who is mixing personal with business. I've entered way too may liquor store charges and ATM fee in the last 2 hours to last me weeks. and I still have 4 months of 2016 to go.

[supertrooper1]

I've been advising management on updates to our new system since January and it has fallen on deaf ears. Friday, part of the new system rolled out and there are bugs. I keep trying to explain what is going on to management, but they are too worried about the assistant commissioner visit at the end of the month. Because the AC is coming, we've been doing an operation that should involve 20 people, but at most have been assigned 10, sometimes as few as 5. And our 4th line keeps telling my manager to have my team do something that isnt possible. I've explained and even created a PPT to show how it's not possible. It's been a nightmare handling the system bugs by myself,communicating with HQ, all while trying to help with the op.

And the kicker? The AC announced today that he isn't coming after all.

[shakinros]

Not a lot of people have access to the Executive Director at my job but he’s my direct supervisor so I see him for a weekly check in. It’s been a turbulent time around here, so I’ve been using part of my time to bring him organizational culture issues that are bubbling up from the staff. Sometimes I suggest a way to deal, sometimes I propose we discuss it with the Directors, sometimes it’s just informational.

Yesterday I did a bad job presenting one of these issues because I was trying to avoid naming names. What I told him was too vague and he didn’t really get it. I sent an email on my way home to clarify. What he sent back was [and this is a real quote] “don’t let me forget to revise your job description this year to include ‘chosen tribune of the plebeians’. “ And then a copy & paste description of a Roman tribune.

Dude. You wanna dismiss what I tell you, that’s your prerogative. How about just saying directly that you don’t want to discuss organizational culture right now? His total commitment to never saying exactly what he means is driving me bonkers.

[rere]

New vent. I think I have voiced our frustration over our organization structure. I have had discussions with another manager about a program that my employees code time. There was an amount of money that is supposed to be spent by Friday. I was told by her, it was specific to one class. Now, it seems she hasn't kept on top of it and still have $6000. We could have all been coding into it, according to finance, so she told me wrong. WHY CAN WE NOT CONSOLODATE ALL OF THESE COMMUNITY PROGRAMS INTO ONE DEPARTMENT SO THERE CAN BE SOME OVERSIGHT AND I DON'T HAVE TO SCRAMPBLE TO FIX PROGRAMS WHERE I DON'T HAVE THE ACTUAL INSTRUCTIONS OR COMMUNICATIONS. Sorry for the yelling. Now off to change my timesheets since July 1.

[polecat8]

I have a coworker who has been holding up my tasks. She is in charge of revising our user manuals. For some reason, she has been really slow to get it done. Everything is on pause until she gets this done. She has been making excuses left and right and I'm just done. First it was that she forgot that her daughter had a dr appointment. Then it was she had to leave early to run some errand for her wedding. Um, hello, we are waiting on you!
I was in charge of the manuals the last time they needed to be revised in July. I managed to get them done in a week while working a crazy schedule because my MIL was dying in hospice.
It wouldn't bother me so much except that she wastes so much of her time - like taking a 2 hour lunch break when she complains that she has a lot to do. I hate people that complain and then don't do anything to solve the problem.

[mommyatty]

I hate palace intrigue, and I’m pretty sure some folks on my team are engaging in it. This week, my VP went on a site visit. Another general director set this up, set the schedule, and attended. I looked at the topics and realized they were all stuff my folks cover, so I had to send two of my people. We are BUSY. I don’t have time to send two people on a trip for my VP to look at stuff he should be able to understand by seeing photos. But whatevs. A guy on this GD’s staff is always trying to stir up trouble, so I have my butt covered. In the meantime,I’m on the opposite side of the country, at a meeting my VP was originally supposed to attend. I’m his stand-in. It is also a great networking opportunity for me, since it’s an executive forum on a new area of responsibility for me.

Last night, at the first networking dinner, I got a call from a consultant who was also on the trip. She was very agitated that my direct report was pushing her to say bad things about compliance at our sites. Specifically, we had a bad contractor a few months ago, she reported it to me, and we immediately audited their projects and made them correct some things. All is well that ended well. But she said my direct report was saying something along the lines of “you, VP, never hear about these things because they don’t go up the chain to you,” which sounds like I’m hiding crap from my VP. So this morning, I talked to my direct report, without asking directly if he had said any such thing. He said the trouble-making employee had asked a weird compliance question and he dug in for the answer from the consultant, who then wanted to bitch about stuff that had happened as long ago as 2002. And he wondered if consultant had fed the weird question to the trouble-making employee.

Now, I can see all these scenarios being true, except the consultant hates the troublemaker. But I can see my direct report trying to tie himself to our VP and cutting me out. (They are close already.) I can see the consultant going on about shit that happened 20 years ago, then panicking and trying to make it seem like Direct Report was putting her on the spot. I can see the troublemaker trying to make it look like there’s a compliance hole in my program. And I don’t have time for any of this shit. I’m busy. My team is busy.

Why can’t people just undramatically do their freaking jobs?

[k3am]

I have work vents that I can't memorialize. But they're both of the "worth quitting over" variety. But I really don't want to quit because while I may not love what I do or certain aspects of my boss, everything else about this job works for me and our lifestyle.

I am mostly sure that at the end of the day, it will work out, but at the same time, I may have HATED my prior company and been miserable there, but I never felt I was being even nudged to do something I was uncomfortable with - I had lots of issues there, but very few of them even wandered the slightest bit into an ethical dilemma.

And as DD says... hate is a strong word.

[justcheckingin73]

twinmomma , I once worked for a company like that, at least with respect to the budget. It was family owned so of course everything had to go through them. I was never given a budget, never had decision making power but would still create marketing plans and analyses of previous years. No one ever looked at them but would question why we continue to do the same things.

ETA: I forgot to add my work vent. I’m so sick of people not getting back to me. Coworkers, vendors, everyone. With the coworkers, I can say f-it, I can cover my ass if needed but I’m contacting vendors for a reason. Seriously. Get back to me. 

[twinmomma]

I am so super swamped right now. This is partially because I had a week out of the office for a conference two weeks ago, I have another week out of the office in two weeks, and I'm consistently having to take a couple hours off each week to deal with lawyers and divorce crap.
My boss knows about the divorce and knows what is going on and has been more than accommodating and supportive. But is it going too far to just tell him flat out that I'm drowning right now? I was up working until 10 PM last night because I didn't have the kids and could work all night with no interruptions. Then today I spent about 6 of my 8 hours in meetings, so I accomplished literally nothing at my desk. It's just insane right now.

[2chatter]

twinmomma - FWIW, IME drowning at work is great during a divorce. It kept me focused on work and not the drama and was a blessing disguised as a curse. I’m glad 75 hour weeks are mostly behind me but they served a purpose.

I’m exhausted but headed home. I have a ton to do tomorrow and can’t see getting up at 5:45am to start catching up after getting home after midnight, so tomorrow isn’t going to be an 8 hour day considering DD has an 8am doctor appointment. I don’t feel bad about that but I do feel bad that I’m behind. Ugghhh cannot win.

[divanerd]

2chatter we must currently work the same place!