September 29, 2004

>> Preemptive complainer

[ Rant ]

Nick Burns, Computer Guy writes...

"Argh. I work with fools!

I'm a contractor and I do computer support for a large government organization and these people just love to complain.

I realize that most people have problems with computers at work at some point but do they actually believe that the people who work in IT intentially break stuff just for grins? And do they think that treating us like crap is going to get them better service in the end?

Case in point. I was scheduled to upgrade a lady's computer to Windows XP while she was out of the office last week for one of her countless government vacation days but wasn't able to because I was given a higher priority project by my boss. Anyway... she calls first thing this morning when she got back to complain that her computer wasn't acting the way it was supposed to and explained to me how badly I had "messed it up" and that everytime someone from my department touches her computer it doesn't work right when we're done. I listened to this for about 5 minutes before I interupted her and told her that I hadn't touched her computer and it was exactly how she left it last week. She then began to studder and get all flustered. She then said "nevermind!" and hung up on me. I was so mad I thought about deleting her email but figured I'd rant here instead (plus I can always delete her email later.)"

01:14 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 28, 2004

>> Too many fools

[ Fools ]

I give up writes...

"I work for a small financial company that uses alot of MS Access databases. We have two "Admins" whose job is to add new users and reset passwords and nothing else. Our databases have a button that users can click to email their passwords to them in case they forgot their passwords. One day, one of the admins called me (the developer) and said he locked himself out. Like most applications, it locks you out after 3 unsuccessful attempts. I asked him to ask the other admin to reset his password. He responded by saying the other admin locked his ID as well. By that time, I got very frustrated. I can't believe how stupid they are. I asked him why he didn't use the password reminder button after the second try. There was complete silence. He too probably realize how stupid he was."

01:02 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 27, 2004

>> Working for Satan

[ Boss ]

Anonymous writes...

"In the seven years I've worked for my company, I've had five different managers.

And almost every mananger I've ever had in my company has allowed me to work a later shift during the summers, as I am a single mom and need to drive my children to distant locations in tne mornings when they're off from school. I am not a special case. There are other "personal situations" in my department and managers are generally very flexible as long as the work gets done and people make their deadlines. I've always considered myself to be very lucky to work in this particular company. I've never even considered leaving because of the generosity and flexibility of the management.

That is...until my previous boss. He refused to allow my usual summer schedule, even after I explained my personal situation in detail. To even consider his decision, he demanded to see a copy of my divorce decree's visitation schedule.

Unfortunately, the company does not have an official "flexible schedule," and decisions are left to each individual manager.

Although this manager was flexible with other individuals on the team, he told ME to figure out a way to arrive by 9:00 AM SHARP every day, adding, "I'm used to dealing with NORMAL FAMILIES, with both a MOTHER AND a FATHER."

Gratefully, after three years of feeling as if I were being "punished" for being a divorcee with children, the department went through a reorganization and I once again work for a fair and kindly manager, who treats his employees with professionalism and respect.

And I again remember why I've stayed with this company for the last seven years, and why I even consider staying until retirement.

They say that whatever "comes around goes around." Maybe some day, this manager, or someone close to him, like his precious daughter, will go through a painful and stressful divorce, with children, and will also need to deal with a merciless boss on top of it all. Maybe THAT is what it will take for him to empathize with those who do not have "NORMAL" families."

01:15 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 26, 2004

>> Marriage

[ Fools ]

Anonymous writes...

"okay, i work with this woman, we will call her suzanne. she is 33 with 3 children and divorced. now let me set this up..... the chick has lived in this southern town of mine for 30 years or so but was born in chicago,you would think would be no accent , oh but there is, she acts like evrything southern is beneath her or some new thing although the bitch has been here for 30 FUCKING years. anyway, another thing on this chick is no matter what kind of life experience you have had , hers has been bigger, better, worse , or even more emotionally fulfilling than yours.shut the fuck up!!!!!! i scream in my head , but alas i need my job.....which apparently she does not seeing as how she only comes in twice a week , and that is to use the phone and eat.......well she has now found love again after 3 months.....she is getting married .....to the first retarded ass who would sleep with her....she comes in talking about be being bent over a truck and in the shower.....suzanne is not a pretty woman....imagine the doughboy with bugeyes and brown hair, well she is trying to convince everyone that it is a good idea even though myself and another co worker have a bet as to when that train will derail.see this guy was in a wreck in 8th grade....he hasnt been right since...im not talking veggie but somebody i wouldnt leave my child with.....oh and this chick has a 15 year old daughter......disaster waitng to happen....okay i think i am done.....thanks for reading"

01:06 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 25, 2004

>> I work for the Sorority Girl from HELL!

[ Work ]

Happy (but looking) Camper writes...

"I'm a low-level manager in a medium-sized bank. If I told you my job description and duties your eyes would immediately glaze over and you would slump over your keyboard from terminal boredom, so I'll not bother. My current supervisors run our department like a Fraternity/Sorority. They send their coddled "pretty people" out of the state on fun business trips while the rest of us slobs are left to enjoy the vistas afforded by our miniature cubicles and the aroma of our neighbour's foot odour. If you are a "chosen one" you may chat on the phone from dawn to dusk with your jailed fiance, compare the virtues of strappy push-up bras with our supervisors at the "Hirusite Hottie" website, surf the internet for hours searching for automobile parts for your customized Ford Pinto Hot Rod and regale your colleagues with snarky e-mails. One non-favorite woman who complained of the rampant favortism was immediately punished by scoring all "F"s on her annual performance appraisal. Thus my comments to upper level management are silenced and short-circuited from now until forever!

While I'm sure this goes on in all offices to some degree, it's particularly blatant in this one. To top it off, for a year and a half we waited for office furniture and worked off of cafeteria tables with our files sheltered in cardboard boxes instead of filing cabinets. I had to lie to my clients as I plucked printouts out of my trash can ("Aaah, yes, here is the spreadsheet, Let me just reach into my desk drawer, yes, yes, there it is - Hmmmm, Hmmm") I sometimes think the executives make things purposefully difficult for the workers by forcing us to use outdated software stuffed with "work-arounds" (I have learned to program in COBOL...) and terminally short-staffing the office. No doubt they have that charming type of insurance where employee deaths result in a pay-out to the company as beneficiary. You live, they work you to death - you die - they score another tax-free executive bonus. Yippee!

I do need to regale you with one short story, the founder of our bank has been dead for 100 years. The former Supervisor of the Supervisors bought a Carvel ice cream cake and cookies to celebrate his (the dead founder's) birthday. One of our little, cuddly favorites had a milestone birthday and our supervisors treated her to a two hour lunch. I skipped Lunch on my (largely unnoticed)birthday because I had everyone else's work to do!! (but I'm not bitter...)

Fortunately, we are getting a new supervisor (or as I like to refer to him: the "head head head") so things may look up in the future. If not, I may need to regress to my old evil ways and start speed interviewing during lunch ;)"

01:08 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 24, 2004

>> Morons moving office

[ Rant ]

Rocky S writes...

"So I'm a skip tracer. Not the most loved occupation in the world, but sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do. For those who don't know, a skip tracer tracks down someone who owes money (in this case, CC debt) and attempts to find out where they live and work. As most people are unlikely to give this kind of info to us for no reason, we use pretexts. We also "assume" people's ID's to get their info out of their utility companies, as well as other "reliable sources". So needless to say, a phone system that doesn't trace back to the office is 100% needed. Well, ever since the one supervisor quit/got fired a year or so ago, things have gone steadily downhill with the in house security, so to speak. The entire phone system was entrusted to someone who had no real idea of what we do, as our Manager & Supervisors are somewhat clueless.

This all came to a head when we recently moved offices. All we've heard about for the last few months is how swank these offices are, and how the company could have got cheaper offices somewhere else but chose instead to movee into these ones. (of course, our bonus and pay structures have been reduced to help pay for this, naturally).

So Monday was the first day in the new offices, and as it's near the end of the month everyone was hard at work on the phones as per usual. Some new files were given out with good info on them (IE; open "reliable sources" on the CB's.)

Much handclapping and back patting was done as all the higher ups were very proud of the new building. Much attention was given to some problems with the cubicles and chairs, very important stuff.

So on Thursday afternoon strange things started to happen. Tracers phones were ringing with people wondering why they were getting called from a "genealogical research" company. Who knows how long this had been going on, but with a new receptionist not aware of what the company does probably since Monday. It was only on Thursday that her phones got so backed up that they started ringing into the trace offices. So, finally some investigation was done and it turned out that for the entire goddamn week our phones had been outpulsing the phone number of the reception desk! In other words, the company had been completely compromised! It seems that with all the excitement of the move, added to the general incompetence of the management, no one had even bothered to make sure that the phones were secure! NO ONE! The even scarier thing is that they didn't even seem to realize the meaning of this. Unbelievable. I won't be waiting around for the Feds to come knocking though, as I've found new employment already. All I need to do is figure out how to get myself 2 weeks severance instead of just resigning."

01:19 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 23, 2004

>> Psychotic beancounters

[ Work ]

486-pimpin' writes...

"I worked for a small technology company (about six employees, I guess we could be called a start-up) that was bought up by a larger government contracting firm when a federal agency took a liking to the product that we were still developing.

The contracting firm, however, was not a technology company. They were a body shop for the various local gov't agencies, supplying secretarial and data entry workers to organizations like the Bureau of Weights and Measures (oooh-- metric is sexy!).

This wasn't a major problem, though, until it was decided that our original office was "redundant", and that we should be working at the main office. That's when the beancounters came unhinged.

First of all-- the computers we were using were positively unwarranted! Sure, the hardware guys were having to do board layout and routing on 28-layer circuit boards with thousands of components each-- but the Beancounters had a computer that ran Outlook Express with only 64 MB of RAM and a 233 MHz processor; certainly, it shouldn't take much more to run OrCad! And the Visual Studio box only *recommended* 512 MB of RAM-- it says you can do it with as little as 128 MB!

And secondly-- who really *needs* a 21-inch monitor? The software guys are just editing *text* after all! You don't need a big screen for that! And the hardware guys can just use the zoom function!

And so the decision was made-- I kid you not-- to SELL the development computers, and buy "more appropriately-specified" computers. Our six machines (each worth about $5000 at the time, even used, counting the monitors) were sold for $1100 a piece to "interested parties referred by employees, contractors, or associates".

The company then bought six low-end eMachines computers for the development team to use. Most of which didn't have the right software (e.g., Windows NT and 2000, among others) to support our development environments, necessitating almost $10000 worth of last-second licensing-- which was charged against the development department's budget, of course; not against the beancounters' dim-witted little idea.

The best part of this whole sordid tale is this: it was the beancounters who bought the computers. When you figure in the fact that six of them split a $1500 bonus for saving the company a total of $3000 with their "resource-matching" program, they wound up paying about $850 to buy computers that were still selling for almost 6 times that price.

On the plus side, most the engineers eventually quit in disgust and the company wound up defaulting on its contract to provide the product under development. Pretty pricey default clause, too.

So there is *some* justice in the world."

01:07 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 22, 2004

>> Another sad story about hiring friends

[ Boss ]

Shorty writes...

"So I'm the only employee in the network operations center at an up-and-coming ISP. Rather than promote me to manage the NOC as the group grows, the guy in charge hires an old friend of his who was recently laid off and can't find work.

So this redneck shows up for his first day. Silly me thinks that I'm going to be showing him how things work. Oh no, I've got to help him get his desk arranged. First he doesn't like the way his computer is configured, so I have to sit there and move his monitor and computer around on the desk while he sits in his chair until it's in the proper position. Then he proclaims that he thinks cables running down the back of the desk are unsightly, and that he needs to drill a hole in the desk to run the cords through.

So I go get a drill and go to Home Depot to buy a bit to make a hole. We make a hole. He puts his cables through. All fine now? Oh no. A plain hole is also unsightly and just won't do. So now he has to have a GROMIT to go in the hole. I spend the rest of that day and some of the next calling hardware stores trying to find a gromit that would not only fit the hole, but would also go with his desk (a pressed wood piece of junk). I then have to go get the gromit, as he decided that he just can't wait any longer with his unacceptable desk situation.

As you can imagine there are many other irritating stories about him, but from this first story you can just imagine how much fun he was to work for/with."

01:11 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 21, 2004

>> Heritage listed - plants included

[ Boss ]

iris writes...

"I am the receptionist for a firm of Chartered Accountants. Our office is a renovated "olde worlde houseeee" which was last renovated in 1985. My bosses wanted to keep the heritage look, and generally hate change so nothing new has been done since about 1985. You can imagine the general look, baby poo coloured walls and lots of mission brown paint. In my reception area I have 3 pot plants, a huge umbrella plant, a monsterio delicio (sp) and something unknown. Now you have to realise these plants have been there since 1985, so they are a tad shabby.

As a new employee 2 years ago filled with enthusiasm I suggested we re vamp the reception area, and get rid of the "feral" plants. I thought my boss was going to pass out, how dare I suggest his reception area was "out of date"!! I said but Jack those indoor plants are not trendy any more, he said to me, our image was to bring the garden outside inside. I looked at the ivy/weed infested 2 foot by 2 foot garden outside and went, I think you have achieved that. 2 years on, I still have the baby poo coloured walls, mission brown skirting boards and the feral indoor plants, in fact I was given a stern talking to for not shining their leaves with the leaf shine stuff they specifically bought 10 years ago for the aforementioned plants.

The partners forked out $3500 AUD recently to revamp the infested front garden, (I could have done a better job for $100.00 AUD, but that is another story). Unfortunately the feral plants still glint at me with their shiny leaves.

My suggestion to put them out to pasture when the new garden was put in was greeted with, I know you do not like our plants but they have been at this firm longer than you have. There is no comeback to that comment."

01:16 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 20, 2004

>> Marginal Power Corrupts Absolutely

[ Boss ]

Anonymous writes...

"So back when I got out of college, the job market was abysmal and I ended up workin as the "administrative assistant" for a re-organization project within the local company. This project was basically a scam run by the outside consultants that pitched it to make huge sums of money for doing very little work themselves by having the employees do the real work so they would feel as if they were "participating in the process". Whatever. Phase I went by okay - the team I supported were intelligent, hard-working folk who had been tapped against their will to work on the project and were grateful to have an employee who could think on her feet and keep their stuff organized. Then, "the crown was passed" to a new team for Phase II, and that's when my life really became hell.

The woman put in charge was a micro-managing idiot who became very pumped up on her supposed power. For example, from Phase I to II, we moved my office and the massive amounts of paper generated to a new building 7 miles away. Usually, that kind of thing was taken care of by the in-house moving department, but our new boss decided that it would be too expensive so I had to move everything. 10 full-sized loads in my Jeep (and no reimbursement for my mileage) later, the task is done. So she crows about the money she saved...and then goes and buys Gumby dolls and keychains for the new 20-person large team so we could remember to be "flexible". (I was subsequently told I had a bad attitude when I blindfolded my Gumby with his arms behind his back, a target over his heart, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.) The kicker on this was they moved this woman's office to the new building with me about two months later. She had one of those huge minivans that could transport at least 8 people, and she was moving less than a mile down the street with three small boxes. Well, apparently that was too much for her, so they got the in-house moving company to do it!

She was also insanely unreasonable. Part of this re-org process included many small team meetings; when a new little subteam was created, she decided to "kick it off right" and decided I had to be there to type up the team minutes (at my original office site, 7 miles away) and get them distributed immediately after the meeting. There were two large problems with this: a) I didn't have a laptop, and her laptop "was too important" to be used (because then I would have seen all the games her kids had installed on it, I suppose); b) I had a well-known and long-published deadline the following day for a second team member who was immensely reasonable and a wonderful person, so I really couldn't spare the time for this inanity. So I talked to a fellow sec'y at the site of the meeting who had some spare time and agreed to type up the minutes and run them off - problem solved, I thought, and proceeded to tell my insane boss. She went ballistic and told me that that was "not what she wanted", so I had to dismantle my desktop computer (with printer), schlep it to this building, haul it up three flights of stairs because the elevator was broken, set it up, sit there for 90 minutes, then print out 10 copies of the minutes and hand them out to everyone on their way out the door (and the comments were "What is this? Oh, we didn't need these now..." - I actually saw two people throw them away...). I then had to then reverse the moving process and bring my computer back, where I discovered that the process had screwed up the contacts for my printer port, now putting my other project in jeopardy. What really pissed me off about this situation was when I asked the VP in charge of the project for a small raise about a month later, I was summarily shot down. Why? My insane, lying b***h of a boss told the top level person that I "refused to do work for her on a regular basis". This was a shock to me and I asked for examples...the ONLY example was the above situation! I couldn't figure out how actually being forced to do the work that I had arranged for a second person to do for me constituted refusal to do work...

I moved on shortly after and this woman was promoted to senior management, based on her "excellent management and organizational skills". *SNORT*"

01:21 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 19, 2004

>> Porn and Art

[ Work ]

EvilKami writes...

"I wish I was making this up.

Alright, I work part time in a small art gallery that is very professionally handled by my boss, his seceutary. At one time, there are no more than four support staff to help.

The very first year that I was hired to work at the Art Gallery, there was this one guy who worked there. Let us say his name was Dick.

Dick had a problem-he loved porn and he had problems with listening to the bosses secetary. One of the rules is that only the boss of his assisstant, are the only ones who handle the computer.

To make a longstory short, Dick got caught not only going onto the computer but also looking up porn.I swear I am not making that one up."

01:27 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 18, 2004

>> You think you work with pigs??!!

[ Rant ]

Anonymous writes...

"I work with this girl who is the most disgusting person I have ever met. Not only does she never wash her hands after leaving the bathroom..She comes into the office and clips her toenails!! Yes that is right she clips her toenails. She is also notorious for coming into work drunk smelling like a brewery and wearing the most prostitue looking clothing you can find. She even did her job interview in fishnets!! She has to be sleeping with someone to keep her job. Of course, not a word is ever said to her. if the boss even attempts to talk to her about her behavior she bursts into tears and tells some story about somepersonal tragedy that just happened."

01:09 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 17, 2004

>> "Works, but sometimes fails"

[ Fools ]

crimethinker writes...

"I am a software engineer, working on a system that will go into a military system. The particular component which is the focus of this story was designed by one hardware engineer, who then transferred it to another engineer and left the company. We shipped to our customer (we are a sub-sub-sub-contractor to the military) and they proceeded to test the hell out of it. Under certain circumstances, the unit won't power up. This hardware engineer looked at the oscilloscope and came up with the brilliant conclusion "it works, but sometimes fails."

I said, "what?!?!?! Does it work or not?" She said, "yeah, yeah, yeah, it works. But sometimes it fails." Holy s***, this is a MILITARY system. I still have nightmares about what would have happened if our customer hadn't performed extensive testing."

01:14 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 16, 2004

>> I have seen the future, and it is stupid.

[ Boss ]

Trotsky writes...

"In the mid 90s, toward the end of my college years, I was involved in the establishment of a Web design firm. While the visionary behind the outfit sold vaporware to the local school district and then found himself unable to deliver a product that never actually existed, I set about producing a huge amount of copy and code that was basis of a Web site that satisfied the terms of the contract and enabled the firm to get off the ground. For weeks of hard work that pulled a $40,000 contract out of the fire, I was paid $400 dollars. Insulted and lacking any real prospects for legitimate compensation at that outfit, I became a partner in a new design firm in Chicago. While there are tales from that time that could also fit into the theme of this site, suffice it to say that a couple of years later I found myself looking for work again.

In the mean time, the firm where I did my first Web work was going strong now, with plenty of wealth to be shared since two huge corporations were both relying on my former employers for a variety of Internet and intranet projects. I moved back to my roots and took a job with a respectable salary, though I found myself working as a junior member of a design department while an marginally capable graphic designer with absolutely no concept of the difference between a piece of paper and a browser window. The guy could put together a decent logo, but his ability to craft quality HTML layouts was comparable to the ability of a used Kleenex to devise an effective national economic stimulus package. To make matters worse, he was consistently inclined to make the worst possible decisions as a manager. During one interview with a prospective new designer (who had no experience but who was hired anyway only to wind up creating more than a few problems of her own) he was asked whether or not the firm had a cafeteria plan. Unaware that this was a type of benefit package related to health care, he answered in all earnestness, "we don't really have anything like that in the office, but there's a lunch counter in the ground floor of the building, and I'm sure we could work something out with them."

After I returned, the company did undergo a major growth spurt, though in fairness that had at least as much to do with the excellent work of the sales staff as with the quality and quantity of media my colleagues and I at the bottom rung of the design department were producing. In spite of one ridiculous directive after another from our airheaded supervisor, we continued to satisfy clients with timely completion and excellent work on one major project after another. However, as more and more airheads were added during this new wave of recruiting, all of whom had some pretense as graphic artists and less technical background than a competent ATM user, it became increasingly difficult to get things done.

Stupidly, I placed my faith in my old friends at the top of the company, thinking that they would eventually realize the scope and severity of the incompetence in the design department and eventually rid the place of the worst offenders. However, as I tried to keep my head down and stay out of trouble, I did find myself generating fewer and fewer billable hours (though at least I did not simply fabricate them as the new wave of chatterboxes did by gossiping the day away and then charging it to clients,) and eventually the axe swung in the other direction. In truth, it is a point of pride for me that I was the first to go in a purge that removed the last vestiges of competence from the design department. Though I continued to hold my tongue for a time when socializing with the executives, I privately predicted the inevitable demise of the firm. Oddly enough, the purge eventually went so high that even the company's original President and the driving force behind its creation was ousted and the imbecile who I despised so moved from head of the design department to boss of the whole operation. Surely enough, the two big clients quickly become unhappy with the results they were getting, and a couple of years later the whole outfit folded. As an ironic footnote, the last bunch of employees, who were mostly natives of India who needed to retain their jobs in order to maintain legal residency here, had no real work to do so they were all tasked with helping this retarded megalomaniac work on a private project of his own. Unable to recoup any of their losses, the initial financier and partners in a later (and completely unnecessary) round of venture capital solicitation considered suing the man they had trusted to take over the company because he squandered what remained of the firm's resources on a selfish personal endeavor. That endeavor -- a still unpublished (and most likely incoherent) book on techniques of effective Web design.

Regards,
Snowball of the corporate Animal Farm"

01:01 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 15, 2004

>> To Hell and Back

[ Work ]

Zorak writes...

"I used to work at a prison in the western U.S. several years ago that put all of my previous and subsequent workplace misery into perspective. Supervisors were carefully selected for the following traits: 1) Expensive wardrobe, 2) Minimal intelligence, and 3) Sadism (or, alternately, a willingness to follow all instructions blindly). Special training at a facility elsewhere in the system resulted in previously OK people coming back and being openly nasty with all of their subordinates upon return. They particularly enjoyed promoting people and then using them to abuse those who had been their friends. While I was there this facility averaged one staff suicide per year (one a friend of mine), usually at least partially attributable to supervisor harassment. The majority of my coworkers were taking some type of psych meds to help survive this place.

For those skeptical about the degree of abuse at this place, I'd like to provide the following quote from a friend six months after she started work there: "When you warned me about the conditions here six months ago, I thought you were a raving paranoid. Today I realize you had greatly understated the situation." Last fall they found out she was going through a very difficult divorce and have spent the last months making her life a living hell (kick 'em while they're down). And there aren't any other jobs in this relatively isolated area, so they have you. I escaped, but I'm not sure she's going to make it."

01:00 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 14, 2004

>> STFU, Mate!

[ Fools ]

Anonymous writes...

"I am ready to explode. See, I work with a woman who was born and raised in the USA, but has some sort of sick personality disorder that makes her think she's randomly British... and Australian. I guess she thinks folks are impressed when she sprinkles phrases like "I have to use the loo", or "Oi, mate!" into daily conversation. Nobody is impressed. It's just a giant red L on the forehead.

It gets better: we have many Brits in our Company, and when she's around them, she does all this speaking IN A BRITISH ACCENT!

I just can't take this fool any longer."

01:05 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 13, 2004

>> Drama Queen and CoDependent Manager

[ Fools ]

Anoymous writes...

"I work with a girl who is dangerously loony. She has some sort of severe personal crisis at least once a month. My favorite was probably the time she had to miss work for 2 days to go to the hospital b/c her brother in law (whom she and her husbands hate) had OD'ed. When asked why none of his family could go, she said she couldn't reach them because 'THEY WORK IN THE FILM INDUSTRY SO THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CARRY PAGERS. ???? This is when we realized she was inventing these tragedies.

When anyone complains about her nonsense and constant lateness we are told that she is a womderful person and we are just jealous of her. I should mention that the company policy for lateness is termination after 9 tardies in 6 months, and she is late 3 times a week.

We were so irritated by her we started a pool. Every week we would bet on which excuse she would use for lateness & what personal crisis would be plagueing her that week.

Once she spent the first 4 hours of her shift talking to five different members of management about her crisi du jour while I was alone covering for her. When she downstairs, she talked on the phone to her husband for the next hour.

Someone in her family is always dying or about to die or in a car accident. She told us that her husband's dad got cancer and was dying. At first we were sympathetic. But the strange thing was, when we asked what kind of cancer, she said he hadn't been to the doctor. Wait...what the hell?

Then she told us he comitted suicide, but they somehow got an insurance settlement. I'm pretty sure suicide negates insurance settlements. Then she said they didn't get a settlement and in fact, he left them thousands in debt. But somehow they both bought new cars. Hmmmm......"

01:08 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 12, 2004

>> Beauty Queen Causes Pulp Mess

[ Fools ]

Dan writes...

"I grew up in a mill town in Maine, and if you were really, really lucky, you were able to get a job in the paper mill for the summer, because that was the only game in town, and paid pretty well for the time (the mid-70s). A girl I went to school with (who was the runner-up in the Miss Maine pageant, but Maine is one of those states where the candidate never wins Miss America because (a) they're always dogs and (b) they can't compete with career candidates from states like Texas and Florida) got a summer job at the mill, and during her training was told to never, ever touch this one lever, which diverted raw liquid pulp from one direction to another. Well, or course she had to pull it on her first day, sending half a million gallons of raw paper pulp sluicing onto a loading dock where half a dozen men were sunbathing on their lunch hour, covering them with semi-caustic liquid and polluting the Androscoggin River. Strangely, she was not fired."

01:02 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 11, 2004

>> Help Desk Hell

[ Rant ]

Fed_Up_With_The_Workforce writes...

"In my early 20's, I worked for a company that offered help desk support to 2000 client customer. We had low-walled cubicles and I hated it. The gentleman that sat next to me is the reason I am posting this:

He was the guy that was always looking at your computer screen when your back was turned to him. When you turned your head towards him he would quickly look away. You just had that eerie sense that he was watching you. He would always look at you when you are talking on the phone. Would always make comments about the conversation you just had on the phone and offer his un-wanted input.

He was the guy that when he made a so-called joke, he would laugh and look around in every direction and assume that everyone else is laughing. He was usually only met with sympathtic snickers or smiles. I got to point where I would just stare blankly at him for 5 seconds after he made the punchline and then look away.

He was the guy who had Star Wars stuff plastered all around his cubicle. Darth Maul and Boba Fett proudly affixed to the top of his monitor. The guy who would send out a corporate-wide email asking who took Boba from his workstation.

I recall him one time saying that his buddies called him "The Head" because you could ask him he knew a website that had "such and such" on it, and he would. I personally think they called him that because his noggin was the size of a cinder block.

I am sure all offices have one of these guys. Needless to say that I was let go from that job for poor attitude and the fact that everyone was intimidated by me. I'm glad they were, for 75% of the people who work in call centers, are idiots. For all the techies still workin "the phones," I salute you."

01:05 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 10, 2004

>> Okay...

[ Fools ]

Anonymous writes...

"As a temp, I've had the priviledge of working with and near a great many fools, but I'd like to share my story of one in particular. The woman I speak of falls into the "old maid" or "crazy cat lady" category. She is mid-to-late-fifties, wears green pants, enormous sunglasses and has a massive tangle of salt-and-pepper hair. Her cubicle is adorned with photos of cats and photos of co-workers who work just a few feet away in other cubicles.
I sat across from this woman for 4 months and SHE'S A NUT.
Any time she sat down at her cubicle, she would mentally ready herself by saying, out loud, "Okay!".
At various times throughout the work day, this woman would say "okay" out loud, to nobody, accompanied by a giant sigh from her unfairly large bosom.
After two weeks of quiet endurance, I began to tally these daily utterances. They ranged from 32 to 54 times a day.
"okay! okay! okay. okay.... okay. okay!"
On the third week, I began to answer her with my own chorus of "Okay!", making sure to say this to nobody in particular and without apparent reason. Sometimes she would shoot me a glance, but I would nonchalantly type or shuffle papers without acknowledging her.
After three months, the "okay" was silenced.
But she's still a fool."

01:10 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 09, 2004

>> Sure it is

[ Fools ]

Anonymous writes...

"I am the network admin for a medium sized company. All I ask from the IT helpdesk staff is that they use their best judgement most of the time, and if I ask them to do something a certain way, there's probably a reason for it. I think I might be asking too much...

One of our helpdesk staff informed a user that her applications keep crashing because she is 'not using an approved mousepad.' He is totally serious about that, too.

Story 2: We use HP LaserJet and DeskJet printers almost exclusively. HP has made finding the right consumables (ink and toner cartridges) very easy by printing big two-digit number on the box as well as having the supported printer model names written on the side of the box.

Simple enough to figure out what cartridge you want, right? Apparently this is a crime or something, because the helpdesk guy in question used a huge black magic marker to not only black out the printer model names/numbers and the big white two-digit number on the front. Then he puts his own label on there, with a letter A-Z, which matches up to a chart he put on the supply closet wall. Not only is this the most asinine duplication of effort I've seen in quite a while, his chart is completely wrong and he has blacked out the original information written on the box so you can't read the correct information."

01:18 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 08, 2004

>> A Tale of Two Bitches

[ Work ]

Just a typist writes...

"Where do I begin? I've been working at a small company for some years now, and we all get along beautifully, with the exception of two people. And of course, they've united to form these sort of evil, Wonder-Twin prototypes. Let's call them Big Bitch and Little Bitch, shall we? At any rate, these two seemingly feed off of other people's mishaps, and never miss an opportunity to "tattle" to the boss or have a marathon gossip session at the expense of some poor soul's misfortune. It had been relatively quiet, up until about a month ago, when Big Bitch somehow managed to acquire a boyfriend. (If indeed someone over 40 can be classified as a "boy") The problem is that Big Bitch is really a lesbian and is only after this poor man for his money, since she can barely afford her mortgage payment each month. This wouldn't neccessarily concern me too terribly much, except for the fact that I am subjected to listening to Big Bitch's "love" chats each and every day. I'm like a trapped rat; no where to run, no where to hide. Not only does she bombard me with her endless array of sloppy sweet-nothings, she does so in an outrageously loud voice, so there is no escape. Now, we get to the meat of the story. Little Bitch is a Big Bitch wannabe and loves to deliver tasty morsels of gossip concerning other employees to her "master". Very similar to the way my cat leaves decapitated lizards on my door mat from time to time, but I digress. Little Bitch is constantly on the lookout for new and interesting treats. And she certainly found one the other day. My coworkers and I are not allowed to chat with each other, since the boss is a tempermental sort, so we are forced to get creative when we wish to communicate. Sticky notes, hand signals and hurried rendezvous by the water cooler were our only reprieve, until we discovered that we could write messages to one another, save them under an uber-secret file name, and then read them at our leisure without fear of being caught. That is until a few days ago, when Little Bitch discovered our file. (If you are familiar with the exquisite piece of cinema entitled "9 to 5", think of the character, Roz, and you'll have an idea of the lengths Little Bitch goes to in order to get her info.) She is evil and must be destroyed!! Her snooping was detected almost immediately, thanks to a loyal spy network, so she didn't have but a few seconds to read the current message before it was deleted, but the damage had already been done. Less than 30 seconds later, frenzied whispers ensued from the breakroom, where Little Bitch shared her gift with Big Bitch. So, of course all of the employees were forced into the boss's office to "discuss" the problem. Wherein, a huge yelling match ensued, and the boss ended by call us all petty, trouble-makers with too much time on our hands, and if it happened again, we'd all be fired. The horror; the horror. Problem was, the entire time we were in our group meeting, Big Bitch and Little Bitch decided to engage in a lying contest -- I guess to see who could concoct the most obnoxious whopper. Obviously, they didn't anticipate anyone challenging their forked tongued tales. But, much to their chagrin, Little Bitch's ass got blasted for always instigating shit and never having any evidence to back up her accusations. And Big Bitch got busted for excessive phone chats during office hours. Doh!! "Wonder Twin Powers, Deactivate!!" Needless to say, they were mighty quiet the rest of the day. As for the rest of us, we got out of there pretty much unscathed. Funny how even the most well-intended schemes sometimes backfire. Moral of the story: "The toes you step on today, just might belong to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow." Pucker up, Bitches."

01:06 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 07, 2004

>> Working with an office slut! S.O.S

[ Work ]

I'm no office WHORE! writes...

"Ok I work in a small office with this total slut, I'll call her Miss M.

The actual word "hell" is in her name so that might give you a clue to the terrible but "true" story I am about to tell.

This "bimbo" Miss M, shows up for work wearing very little each day and brags about not wearing any panties!! I'm serious!! Like we really care in a "corporate" environment to see someone at work each day wearing next to nothing!!!

There is a dress code but it "seems" like it dosen't apply to her! I mean, if "I" wear a tank top on a HOT summer day and I am fully covered with a skirt on and nothing showing but my shoulders, I get sent home!!

Mrs. M wears less!! her skirts are so short and her heels so high, it grosses everyone out but nobody sends "her" home!!
I might add she is nothing to look at!
this is a Mortgage company for crying out loud!! What boss would let an employee get a way with this???
I have complained to upper management about Miss M many times. I said I found her dress attire VERY disturbing but was I listened too??
NO!!!
I have been in this company a long time, ten years to be exact. I have always been on time too and haven't had a raise in 2 years but Miss "M" has been here six months and said to me the other day how she has had two raises!!!!
I gave notice. I can't stand working with this two-bit whore!
Rumor has it that she is screwing the boss so this is why she gets "special" favors and raises!! I on the other hand have a husband at home and two lovely children to support and don't sleep with the boss or dress like a whore so I don't get anymore $$ for showing up everyday and doing a good job!
This bitch Miss "M" dose NOTHING and gets paid for it too!! She gets to take long lunches that are two hours, "plus" to spend time with her kid and from what she tells me...
she dosen't even know who the father is!! It seems like I have to fuck the boss like her to support my two "legitamate" children or find a new job.
I have since got a lawyer because I'm planning to sue this company for discrimination!!"

01:04 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 06, 2004

>> Stupid Age Requirements and New Upper Bosses

[ Work ]

Elisa writes...

"I might not be able to vote yet. Seeing how I am only 17, but I have been working at a particular coffee shop for 2 years now. Next to my manager I am the most experienced person working.

I have been told that I am the most trusted and hard-working employee. The best thing is that our coffee shop was just put under corporation control. Which means hell for me.

We were told that we would have the opportunity to move up, and get paid higher. For my two years of working I have been given one raise of 50 cents. THe raise was promised in December, but they decided not to give it to us for four months because we didn't deserve it for some unknown reason. They took out tips away, because we got a new raise.

There are two things which really bug me. I have been working there for two years, and I make the same amount as the newly hired employees that do not do their work. I am denied a raise for an unknown reason. I have always done extra work becaus emy amanger needs the help. I wanted to start doing paperwork on weekends because it would mean not being on the floor serving customers, and more responsibility for me, which I would gladly take. I am not allowed to do that because I am not 18. That would mean being a supervisor type of person although I already fulfill all but the paperwork part of being a supervisor. THis is also why I can't get a raise. Our new bosses suck. I can't do more work because I am not old enough. And i cannot get a raise because I am not moving up in the ranks because I am not old enough. Stupid bosses."

01:11 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 05, 2004

>> The Know-it-all

[ Fools ]

Manda writes...

"There is this new guy at work...he's one of those guys who makes you wish that the murder of stupid people was legal. So far he has:

1. Set us back a day on working because training him was literally impossible. He would interrupt me constantly to tell me some stupid story or to make some dumbass comment. By the time he shut up, I forgot what I was teaching him how to do. After I finally got through his thick skull [or at least I thought] how to do the simplest of tasks, I set him off working smaller figures thinking it would help him learn and told him to ask questions whenever he got confused. Not only did the moron NOT ask questions, he constantly complained that what he was doing was "boring" and that he wanted something else to do. Well guess what, idiot...we all wish that but we are all stuck with the same crappy job as you so shut the hell up and work.

2. Had the nerve to preach to us about nutrition and how we should all eat healthy and drink lots of water. Now don't get me wrong...I am not against drinking water or eating healthy foods but geez...don't preach to me about eating those unhealthy McDonald's fries when you are the first to the greasy pizza box when our boss buys us lunch. Don't gripe at me because I had 2 cookies in a day when you are the first to grab a cookie/fudge when someone brings some in. And stop asking me for my candy that I keep in my filing cabinet because guess what?? It's not healthy so therefore you can't have it.

3. Likes to throw in our faces all of his "accomplishments". Okay, whee...you have a Technical Writing minor yet your major was CIS and you can't even work with a damn database? And you wrote an 8 page paper on a one-line poem? Good for you. Too bad that the paper looked like it was written by a 3rd grader. Yes, I used to be an English major...I know what good writing is. He can't even spell half of what he writes correctly. And yet he thinks he's accomplished more than me? At least the people here LIKE me.

4. He's a major kiss-ass. MAJOR kiss-ass. Wants to go to all the meetings although he has no idea what's going on. Wants to be in charge of sending out the emails that lets you know what's going on when even he doesn't know. Dude, you're an intern...we aren't going to get promoted! We aren't going to get a raise! We're here doing the slave work for everyone else. Get over it!

And to top if off, he butts into everyone's business. You don't even have to even be looking at him or even in the vicinity of him but if you say something that catches his attention, he lets you know his opinion. Whether you ask for it or not. And I just find that downright annoying. If I want to talk to you, I will. But I find it rather rude that YOU break into MY conversation with someone else with some stupid comment that usually has NOTHING to do with what I was talking about to start with.

And so that's what I work with. Everyone here is ready to kill him. And I'm sure you would like to as well if you could experience the wonders of T, the Know-It-All."

01:20 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 04, 2004

>> Get me the F*** outta here!

[ Rant ]

Contract Man writes...

"I am a contractor who works for a company that sends me to their clients for 3,6,9 month or year contracts. I am just finishing up a contract and recently told my boss I didn't want to stay at the current client because they don't know what the hell is going on. (Yea, ok who does, I know!) But this is really bad. I initially started at this client because they needed me ASAP. I finished the critical project in 3 weeks and have been hanging out ever since!

This place has a development team with a couple of DBAs that I'm not sure what they hell they do. Don't DBAs write stored procedures, table design, database maintenance, etc? Well, I thought so to. All I ever see them do it read email, surf the web and look at those pretty programs that have a bunch of lines and charts which I am assuming are performance monitors. Makes them look like they are really working. (I need me one of those!) I worked on a couple of applications and had to do all the damn database work myself. Not that I mind because I know how but damn, like I didn't have enough to do writing the friggin program. Then you have Mr. IKnowHOWToWriteASPPagesInASP.NET...what a frickin dumbass. He complains about how much damn work he has because he's constantly writing ASP.NET pages like hes doing ASP using ADODB recordsets and VBScript. Plus he's ones of those people who throws everything into a string variable and then calls Response.Write(string). (Ok, forgive me here for those of you who don't know programming talk.) He's always working on stuff that is breaking it seems like and amazingly, its his programs that are breaking. Duh! Anyway, then he complains about every medical problem he has - high cholesterol, problems with his ass, cuts he's had, and things I'd rather not know! But he makes a point to tell EVERYONE in the office so I get to hear the story like 6 times.

The last project I worked on I was given a set of business requirements. Ok, cool. Design Requirements - every programmers dream. I reviewed them and came up with some questions. One of them being, "Where is the database that I will be retrieving data from to display this information?" 4 people said, "Well, I'm not really sure." WTF???!!! Come on people. I asked what kind of application, web or windows? "Whatever you like." was the answer. So, I coded up some web pages and programmed all of it in C# since there is only 1 person that can read C# code here. The rest are all ASP programmers.

The real jest of this place is this: I have sat for the last 2 weeks and have not coded a single line of code!! AND I'm getting paid for it. I also take 2 hour lunches, leave early and get NO questions asked. I gave up trying to ask for work as what to do next because I get the same answer. "Well, we will have to see what we can find. We will get with you when we find something." Why the hell am I here anyway? Not that I mind getting paid to surf the internet, but there are only so many sites you can go to before you become bored! I can be doing other stuff with my free time.

Anyway, my ass is going on vacation for a couple of weeks and hopefully will come back to a new opportunity. The company that I work for has found another client for me to go to, but there is no way in hell I'm going back to work for a gov't agency.

I know that this sounds like everyones dream to be getting paid for doing nothing, but I started feeling guilty for not doing something while I was here, but that has worn off now. I don't give a shit if you want to pay me for sitting on my arse! However, I'm one of those few people that can only sit on my arse for so long before it starts to hurt. Ow...I need to get up now. :-)"

01:20 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 03, 2004

>> Check your Teacher's Guide, Please

[ Work ]

Speechless writes...

"Teaching in my fourth grade, I had the undivided attention of my class as I was 7 minutes into the orientation of the morning's agenda. Suddenly, over the intercom, we hear the booming instructions from our principal. "Teachers: Check your Teacher's Guide. You are not allowed to wear a thong. I've been looking and I see them!"
My boys did a quick head turn and eye contact was made with me with a tight lock. We all cracked big smiles. What could I do? I just shook my head slowly from side to side and said, "I don't believe she said that..."
That announcement went over the entire school. (That's how intercoms work in public schools. They can call one room or all.)
You just cannot talk like that to children, certainly not 10 year olds these days.
I can tell you this. Those boys would not lower their eyes for quite a few minutes.
Now, what child these days knows a thong can be a flip-flop.
And forget about anyone talking uprank to a principal. No-one dared address the comment to her.
Yes, I am another who has left the ranks of teachers in public schools. I retired early at 21 years. Enough is enough."

01:13 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 02, 2004

>> Don't make your team members vomit at the conference table, please

[ Work ]

godstrikemedown writes...

"I used to be on a sales team of a fairly large organization and every morning we would have a status meeting with our manager. The fool in question who we'll call "FC" chose this as the opportune time to have his breakfast.

Now if it were a bagel, or a muffin, or a bowl of cereal, or even eggs and toast, or whatever, I would not have cared. But FC had the strangest diet anyone as ever seen.

His normal routine was to have a bowl of Cheerios topped not with milk, but with a can of tuna, oil and all, and eat it in front of the WHOLE team during these meetings.

Other days, he would have a can of beans, pinto, or kidney I can't remember, but he would eat them right out of the can, and when he was done, would drink the juices.

The kicker was the day he tried to cook his own lunch in the employee microwave. He brought in a WHOLE FROZEN CHICKEN and proceeded to hog the microwave for the entire lunch hour. The office reeked for the rest of the day, and he then complained that he did not have enough time to eat his lunch, as the microwave did not cook it fast enough.

Good lord...

He was of course terminated for low performance (an entirely different rant)"

01:01 AM - Posted by Disgruntled

September 01, 2004

>> Gone Fishin'

[ Boss ]

Anonymous writes...

"Let me start out by saying the (new)head of my company is pure evil. The only way I keep my sanity is that I'm such a lowly grunt that I almost never have to interact with him. On my last work evaluation in order to make sure that I didn't receive any kind of raise, I got marked off points for things such as equal oppertunity employment and supervisor skills-all of which had the words if applicable next to them. (keep in mind, I have never hired or supervised anyone or even been asked my opinion of anyone, in fact there is no one I work with daily that is below me or even to the side of me). This seems to be an increasing method of screwing people over of by rating poorly in catergories that they don't do at all. Several friends (not at the same place) have had the exact same stunt pulled on them. I am ,however, asked to do twice as much work as the person in my position before me. This is not rare and people are fleeing this company as soon as they can find another job.

I, however, work in an separate section of the company where the only people I have daily contact with are those in my direct department. I have two bosses both of whom hardly show up. Big boss never comes in unless there is there is a meeting with someone hire up, and little boss-seeing that big boss is not there doesn't feel a pressing need to come in.

I, myself, could get away with coming in at 12:00 and leaving at 3:00 as that would be the only time they are there to know. Oh wait, except for two things, I'm hourly (and get this I have to get one of my bosses to sign my time card every week (even though it's done by computer)-if I can find them or I don't get paid!So instead of working, I have to spend my time staking out their office. I would have not recieved a paycheck at all some weeks if it wasn't for a sympathetic person in payroll who is risking their own job breaking the rules on my behalf.) and, oh yeah, someone has to do some actual work to get things done. Which also means I can never be away from the office to go to lunch, a day off, or go on vacation without all hell breaking loose as :#1 that would mean no one is there. #2 if they were- they wouldn't have any idea how to do anything anyway.

Now, why haven't I complained about these jerks, because like I said the head of the company is pure evil and to be noticed for complaining is to risk being fired (excuse me-having the department reorganized). Esp. since he is not too happy with our department's perfomance(gee I wonder why that could be).

And it is really too bad, because the job itself would be really great, the reason I have to work with these $#@$***! is that there are way more people who go to college in my major that there are actual jobs. So I'm luckly to be employed at all. My resume right now is polished to a shine, I'm starting to be less discriminating in what I look for. Anything short of flipping burgers has got to be an improvement."

01:09 AM - Posted by Disgruntled