monster sarcasm rally

Clarity in the workplace

I ran into my boss’s boss on the way into the office this morning. He asked me if I’d heard any more about that job within the department.  

I told him that – well, yes – I’d met with the big boss last week, and erm… There is no job. At that point he turned left and I turned right and the conversation ended.  

Apparently he called the big boss and repeated what I said. So, I just got called into his office. There was a touch of the ‘you just made me look like an idiot’.  

‘It’s not that there is no job’, he said.  

I’m no less confused than I was before. It’s completely not true that it doesn’t exist. It’s just that it doesn’t exist right now. In this space-time continuum. And they’ll need to re-evaluate it. And it won’t mean working for the person it was going to be working for. Or be called what it was going to be called.

It still exists. Maybe. In the future. Or another reality. Or something.

The first rule of Initech is you don't talk about ANYTHING

In recent weeks I have had two job interviews. Both have been internal positions. Both have been with the so-called hiring managers. Both have gone really well. In both cases I was invited back for second interviews.

I had second interviews for both roles on Friday. In both of those interviews I found out that the alleged jobs do not actually exist.

Non-existent job no. 1: If the job ever does come to exist in future, My name will probably (well, maybe) be at the top of the list. Near, the top of the list. On the list. We'll see.

Non-existent job no. 2: The interviewer said he was really surprised they were willing to meet with me at all. Usually when there are positions open, they want candidates with experience. Could you get out of my office now, please?

Closing time

Stormageddon, it's what he calls himself.

My friend says I'm a dork

Between wearing a dress and having a nipple pierced... The dress is *way* scarier.

Weekly drinking and b*itching session

From: Sars
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:04
Question: Wednesday or Thursday?
Discuss.  

From: Gay Co-worker
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:06
It is customary to use the asterisk to replace a letter when censoring words, rather than just to displace it…
Wednesday or Thursday works for me.  

From: Sars
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:07
Oops!

From: Blonde Co-worker
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:11
Depends which day we could all leave the office at 6.

From: Sars
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:12
Well, that rules [Girl] out altogether.  

From: Girl Co-worker
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 2:13 PM
Harsh.  

From: Gay Co-worker
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:14
Fair.  

From: Blonde Co-worker
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 2:16 PM
She can remote in with my iPad.  
Girl – what were you drinking last time? It looked like you were eating mint leaves  

From: Gay Co-worker
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:17
Oooh, does that work now? Remoting from the iPad…?  

From: Sars
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:18
Hmm… Is she remoting into the office from the pub? Or remoting into the pub from the office?  
I just used remote as a verb. I need to go take a shower.

From: Girl Co-worker
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:24
Or you could use pink comic sans… :)   

From: Sars
Sent: 20 September 2011 14:27
[Girl Co-worker], let’s socialise these plans now. :) Will you be remoting into the office from the pub? Or remoting into the pub from the office?
LOL
;)
xoxo   

Ugh. I feel so dirty. 

   

There is no spoon

Or 'Why I hate project management, part 3'...  

I’m working on a complex project that will impact many systems. I’ve spent months gathering info from various system owners and developers. Right at the start the owner of System X told me that this would not impact his system, there is no dev work required, no config, no data mapping, nothing. He has declined to participate in any of the tech team meetings ever since.   

In the tech meetings for the project, the various other system owners have all told me that System X will need *a lot* of work to implement this project. Everything depends on System X. There will be massive amounts of data verification, mapping and conversion in System X for this project to work.   

I went back to the owner and the developer for System X and asked them if they were really, really sure there was no work for them to do. I explained what we were trying to do and how important it was.   

The developer got back right away and said, ‘don’t worry. Everything’s mapped to [the thing we’re trying to eliminate]’.   

So I wrote back and said ‘if it’s mapped there, it will need to be remapped elsewhere as that is the whole purpose of this project’.   

The system owner responded right away. ‘Nothing is mapped to [the thing we’re trying to eliminate] or to [the thing we’re replacing it with]. There is no mapping’.   

That’s great. I’m going to document everything and keep the e-mail trail, but somehow when it all goes wrong, I will still be the one who looks like an idiot.   

This same system owner caused me grief last week as well. I was trying to get dev names for all the impacted systems. I was in a meeting with a bunch of people who told me to get a dev contact for System X. I had an e-mail from this guy telling me who the contact was. I stated it in the meeting. Everybody laughed. Surely I misunderstood, they said. He doesn’t work on X; he only works on Y.   

I replied to the system owner using the same e-mail in which he told me the name of the contact for System X and said that everybody had laughed.  

‘NO!’ he said. ‘He is not to work on System X. He works only on System Y’. 

Why I hate project management, part 2

Yesterday I sent an e-mail to the users on this project (CC’ing my boss). I said here is the gap analysis. It contains a full list of all the features in the new system side by side with a full list of all the features in the current system. It also describes each feature. I need you to tell me how and when each feature is used.   

Today I heard back from my boss, saying he had met with the users yesterday late afternoon on this. They sorted out a plan to get the documentation done.

What I need to do is send them a full list (not the gap analysis) of all the features in the new system side by side with a full list of all the features in the current system. I also need to describe each feature.  

So, could I please do that ASAP?   

    Have I mentioned I hate my job? 

Why I hate project management

The team of twatting jackasses invent a project and tell me that it will be accomplished by implementing their FUS (frakking useless system) in place of the current STWJF (system that works just fine).  

I conduct a gap analysis. There are many gaps.

But…

• I can’t get the dev team to tell me how they plan to close out the gaps until I can tell them how things will work when the project’s finished.
• I can’t get the team of twatting jackasses to tell me how things will work, until I can tell them how they currently work.
• I can’t get the dev team to tell me how tell me how things currently work because that’s not their job.
• I can’t get the users to tell me how things currently work until I can tell them how they will work when the project’s finished.
• I can’t get the users to tell me how things should work when the project’s finished because that’s not their job.
• I can’t get the team of twatting jackasses to tell me anything at all until I can document exactly how things currently work and precisely how they WILL work when the project’s finished. But they’ll certainly follow up with daily meetings, chat sessions, phone calls and gazillions of e-mails telling me to hurry up and finish the documentation.  

Oh, and of course, I can't get anybody to do anything until the documentation's completed and signed off.

No, you cannot touch the Mango

I'm working on a project at work. In other news, everybody laughs when I say 'project', because apparently I say it funny. Well, you can all bite me.

Anyways, this project is full of tools, wankers and one massive, screaming, two-faced twat. This last, a stupid, petty little boy who has graciously decided to mentor me, is currently the bane of my existence.

He schedules lengthy meetings for the two of us. The only means I have found of avoiding committing suicide during these meetings is by sending snide, bitchy e-mails to people while looking him in the eye.

After one particular such e-mail a co-worker responded by telling me to imagine him naked. What happened instead was...

He's such an arrogant, self-important pompous little git, that the image that sprang to mind was... Well... Suddenly I saw him in spandex hot pants and cowboy boots, covered in glitter, dancing around, trying to persuade a crowd of people to touch him. Unsuccessfully, I might add.

It wasn't a particularly pretty sight.

That's how my brain works.

Also, I think he needs a silly little hat. I just can't decide what kind.

A minute of 'silence'

 

We just had the most undignified moment of silence in history. An announcer came on and said we were going to have a minute of silence in honour of friends, family and colleagues who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks in the US 10 years ago.   

She then proceeded to leave the microphone on for the entire minute, during which we got to listen to her chair squeaking and her mobile phone going off.  

My colleague and I sat here with our hands over our mouths trying desperately not to laugh. Which would have been rude…

Let's do this again, shall we?

Meeting Notes from this Morning's Very Important Meeting

Attendees: Sars
On the phone: 0
Absent: All others (0 declined, 5 accepted, 3 ignored the invite)

Meeting Minutes
10:00 to 10:02 — checked my e-mail
10:03 — wandered out into the corridor
10:04 to 10:06 — surfed the internet on my iPhone
10:07 to 10:11 — typed sarcastic blog post on iPhone
10:12 — got bored and returned to desk
10:14 — returned to conference room to hang up the phone

New and improved

I'm considering re-inventing myself. Not, you know, into a whole different person. I'm not going to do something crazy like eat a sausage or go see a musical... But maybe I could do to rethink some of the things about myself that I've always taken for granted.

For instance, and this is probably a way-too-obvious place to start... It's been about 20 years since I last wore a skirt or a dress at all. Maybe I could do that. Just an idea.

Okay, maybe not THAT dress.

Erm... No, not that one either.

But still... What do you think?

Oh, and please don't tell anyone I said this.

Yuck!

Through an odd and not-very-interesting set of circumstances I had to buy semi-skimmed milk for my tea instead of whole (or 'homo' as we call it in Canada). Icky poo yucky! It's vile.

Welcome to Initech

I had a job interview this week. It was for a different job in the same department at the same company.

I suspected that some of what the hiring manager wanted out of this role was stuff I’ve already been doing.

Turns out that although there’s more to it than what I’ve been doing, she had no idea a lot of the stuff I do was being done by anybody or who it was being done by if it was being done at all. In most of the department, those are things that fall under her team’s remit. So she decided to create a new job for somebody to come in and do those things.

Basically, if I get that job (and it sounds like there’s at least a reasonable chance I will) then I will get to do more of the part of my job I like and less of the part I hate. If I don't get that job it will be for one of two reasons. Either it means they've figured out that they don't need to hire me to do a job I already do, or it means there's a reason they're advertising my job.

Sigh. Welcome to Initech. Nothing is ever simple.

Today is poo

My day started off with my boss sending me a message telling me to put together a stupid document, and not to bother with formatting or content – just get it done.

He CC’d a bunch of people who’ve been accusing us of not doing our jobs, thereby making it seem he was saying it was all me. Whether he meant to CC them, or just accidentally hit reply to all, I do not know. Whether he wanted it to sound as if he concurs with their assessment, I do not know.  

But now I need to do up a document full of information I do not have, whilst not bothering about the frakking formatting or the goat-bothering content. So long as it answers everybody’s questions…  

Right. No prob. Shouldn’t be an issue. Would you like me to magically conjure up a flying monkey made of cheese to dance around the office singing Christmas carols as well?  

I hate my job.