monster sarcasm rally

A tale of two job postings

And now a tale of such astounding stupidity that it's worth bringing this site temporarily out of hibernation.

One... I applied for an internal job I was perfectly suited for. I didn't hear back. A few days later my current boss told me he'd heard through the grapevine that I'd applied. Oh, and wasn't it a shame that they'd decided to move the role to NY?

The job is still posted. In London. Nobody has contacted me about it.

Two... I applied for an internal job for which I thought I was well qualified for. The hiring manager said promised to look at my CV and get back to me. Then nothing.

Two weeks later I got an e-mail from HR on my personal account. 'Dear candidate. Thank you for your recent application'. Generic rejection letter... Only it wasn't. It was actually an invitation to interview. Please select from the times below and confirm your availability blah blah blah.

I responded from my internal account and said my calendar was up to date, so please put something in the calendar. They did. I accepted.

This morning they sent a meeting cancellation. I asked why and if they were planning to reschedule. They said the hiring manager had decided to only meet with qualified candidates. So sorry about that.

Half an hour later they called back. So sorry about that. The hiring manager DOES want to meet with me. They did mean to cancel interviews with some candidates they'd changed their minds about; however, I wasn't meant to have been one of them.

Good grief.

Low tech

Want to hear a funny story?

Too bad…

I applied for a mortgage a few months back. After much to-ing and fro-ing, the mortgage advisor finally got me a verbal approval from the bank. Last week he called me to tell me that they’d changed their minds — due to my work visa. Not that there was anything wrong with the visa — they just couldn’t read it.

He went on to say that he thought they were just being really stupid. He said it printed out fine from his computer and was totally legible when he put it in the fax machine, so clearly this was not his fault.

Yes, fax. Because, obviously, it’s 1987 and that’s the pinnacle of modern technology.

I told him that fax machines don’t generally deal well with greyscale, so the image would just appear as one big solid black box. I told him to forward them my e-mail. He said he'd get it all cleared up and the bank would book the valuation survey on Monday.

I didn’t hear from him on Monday, so I e-mailed him on Tuesday and asked what was going on. He said that after the trouble with the fax, he had taken the print-out of my scan and posted it to the bank.

Posted. Because, who are we kidding… It’s not 1987 — it’s 1957.

The bank had received the printed-out copy of the scan of my visa, and they were fine with it. And so they’d faxed it to their underwriting department.

Oh boy… Here we go again.

Strangely, when Santander’s underwriting department received the fax from Santander’s mortgage approvals department, the funniest thing happened. The visa appeared as one big solid black box. How bizarre! So they have decided they can’t possibly give me a mortgage unless I can prove I really do have a valid work visa and not just a black rectangular bit of paper.

They called the mortgage approvals department, who called the mortgage advisor, who called me. Please could I provide a new scan of my work visa? I did so. In fact, I sent a scan and a photo.

I just heard back from the mortgage advisor. The scan looksed great, he said, so he printed it out and faxed it off to the bank.

Sigh.

I’ve heard that you can sometimes hire monks as freelance scribes to produce hand-written copies of documents. And they can also read them to you. Because this is actually 1357, you see, and that's the pinnacle of modern technology...

Ow!

People keep asking me what's wrong. Why am I so unhappy lately? Why am I not my usual witty, sarcastic self?

And I realised there is one stupid reason — this stupid tooth. It hurt for a month before I gave in and went to see an Evil dentist. Then I saw three different dentists five times before they were finally ready to take it out. That's two months of not sleeping well.

They took it out on Thursday. Now I've got constant, searing pain. I haven't slept through the night in months.

I'm tired. And I'm tired of being tired.

I would like to get back to enjoying my life now.

All in good pun

E-mail exchange...
Me: I have a dentist appointment on Thursday. Need to leave at 1430.
My (possibly drunk) boss: Good time for a dentist appointment. 'Tooth hurty'.
Me: Don't mock me in my time of pain!

The plan

Somebody in my boss's boss's boss's office came to me and asked me to come up with a plan to save money in a certain way. 

I spent three weeks working on it. I hit numerous roadblocks and came up against countless unexpected challenges. But in the end I came up with a plan that was scientifically sound, logical, practical, workable and BRILLIANT.

I presented my plan to my boss. He thinks I'm awesome. I presented my plan to the guy from my boss's boss's boss's office. He was blown away by she sheer genius of it all. 

He asked how quickly I could get it implemented so we could start realising all the astounding savings. I said I'd get to work on it right away. He gave me the name of the individual who could help implement it.

I contacted the appropriate individual.

And that's when the previously unseen brick wall jumped out of nowhere.

No, this other guy (aka 'the petty bureaucrat') says. 'We didn't tell you guys to  implement the plan. We just asked you to come up with a plan. We'll decide whether or not any plan will be implemented.'

I love my job.

I am Sherlocked

He didn't. And neither did he. Nemeses need each other. If you've got a nemesis, it's your responsibility to keep them alive and battle-ready. Otherwise what's the point of you?

Friday the 13th

Today I have successfully:

• pissed off our clients;
• persuaded management that I’m incompetent AND requested my performance review;
• convinced a guy that I am desperate, cloying, annoying, demanding and a giant moron; and
• convinced somebody who wants my job that I am utterly rubbish at it.

Oh, and because it's that kind of day... It turns out the guy (in spite of all the interest he's shown) has a girlfriend. With whom he lives. Oops, did he forget to mention that? Before chasing away all the other guys who were looking interested...

   

The oddly specific proposition

'Tis the season for Christmas parties and festive gatherings. And that means one thing is certain — people will be getting it on. Or at least trying to...

I had my work Christmas do on Tuesday. After the bar staff kicked us out of the first place so they could close up, a bunch of us went to an after-hours bar in the City.

I ran into a guy I had met at a bar a few months back. We chatted for a few minutes, then he returned to his group and I to mine.

A few hours later he reappeared.

'I'm heading out now. I'm going to grab a cab. You're welcome to join me — if you want. Just putting it out there. It's an idea.'

That's sort of your bog-standard, textbook classic proposition. Nothing's too specific. We both know what he means. We both know what he wants. I can (and did) say no without a scene and with only minimal wounded pride.

But the key feature is plausible deniability. If I were to create a scene (what? You don't call me for two months and now you think I'm going to sleep with you!) or if some mysterious, beefcake boyfriend were to appear from behind a previously unseen tree and start something, he can claim he just meant sharing a cab. That's all. Nothing else.

Right.

One guy decided to take a slightly different approach. He started off in fairly typical form, but then veered off into what has to have been The Most Oddly Specific Proposition. Certainly the oddest I've received from a man I don't know.

He began by asking what I was doing later. Well, no. He began by buying me a drink. Not the drink I asked for, mind. But a drink none the less.

I said I was going home. He asked if I were sure. Oh, yes, I was. He told me he had a hotel booked just around the corner. All the time waving his hands around, showing off his wedding ring.

Then he asked if I was familiar with talcum powder. 'Erm... Yes', I said. He asked if I ever used it. I do not.

He went on to offer me 'the most amazing night ever', having talcum powder rubbed all over my naked body. All night. Even if nothing else happened, he said, we'd both have a wonderful, incredible night.

Wow. So much for plausible deniability.

Also, eew.

I spit on your pivot table!

My job currently involves actively collecting vast amounts of information from other people. Basically I’m asking one person in each group what his group is doing and who’s working on what.

One person has refused to give me the info. Instead he’s given me directions on where to find the information myself. The words needle and haystack come to mind. Also, it means I’m getting the unverified information, not stuff he’s actually gone through and confirmed.

One guy smiled and agreed to provide what I need. But hasn’t done so.

One guy frowned and made sceptical faces, but at least agreed to provide what I need. Although he’s convinced that by me asking, it’s a demonstration that I intend to micromanage everybody in his team on an ongoing basis, and he thinks they probably won’t like that. Also, he doesn’t like the way I’m storing the information I’m collecting. And have I ever heard of pivot tables?

One guy has been fighting me every step of the way, insisting that… well, that he could do a much better job of things than I can.

One guy has been fighting me every step of the way, insisting that if he shares the info he’ll lose control of it. And then nothing will get done.

One guy has repeatedly sent me information other than what I’m looking for and is undoubtedly getting sick of me coming back to him with requests for clarification and or repeats of the same request over again. Of course, he still keeps sending me vast piles of information I didn’t actually ask for and none of what I did.

And then there’s the guy in Germany, who insists that it’s unlawful for me even to request such information. It violates worker rights, don't you know?

Also, pivot tables are for the weak and lazy. Sure, they’re fine for quick and dirty one-off analysis. But if you need reusable report templates, you write the formulas yourself!

She of many hats

So... Time for an office update. A while back my boss was fired made redundant handed a big cheque and politely asked to please, very kindly go away.

Given that his boss had previously left the company, that meant I reported directly into the global head of the division — a man I'd met twice. Briefly. In group settings.

I had a phone conversation with the guy who sort-of replaced my boss. In New York.

Who would I be working for? He didn't know. What would I be doing? He didn't know.

A few weeks later I spoke to him again. By this point they had finally changed my reporting structure such that I reported into this guy. He said the fact that I told him up front that I wasn't particularly good at project management and that I didn't like it very much... Made his job much easier!

Erm. Wow. Thanks.

A few days after that the Chief of Staff called me (also from New York). We chatted about me joining her team. At one point she asked me: You don’t by any chance know anything at all about finance, do you? I mean, if not — don’t worry. The rest of us had to learn it as we went along too.

Actually, I’ve got an MBA in finance and six years of experience in investment research and analysis.

This led to an extended silence, and I began to wonder if (perhaps) I was a little over-qualified for this job. The conversation led to no resolution. Nothing was decided.

Or so I thought...

A few days later she sent somebody else an e-mail, CC-ing me. She said she wanted to set up a meeting to discuss how we should go about transitioning me to her team.

Right.

Then the new big boss in London started. Right away he called me into his office and told me he had big plans for me and my job. The role he had in mind wasn't project management (hooray!), but it also wasn't the same as the stuff I'd spoke with the Chief of Staff about.

Right.

So then this guy took away my last project so I could focus on his stuff. But the guy he gave it to already had a lot of things on the go. So he complained to his boss.

Then his boss decided that since all my projects had been taken away, clearly I had a lot of spare time. And so he took one of this guy's other projects away from him and gave it to me.

To summarise... Until recently I had very little work, and what I did have I hated. I had one boss, and he didn't even know who I was. Now I have four bosses all with completely contradictory ideas about what it is I'm meant to be doing.