The problem, you see, is that I don't actually like you.
As far as that goes, I don't think you like me. Certainly your communication style, which is condescending and disrespectful, indicates that you don't.
In a remarkably short amount of time, I've learned to disrespect you right back. And I know it shows.
This isn't good for either of us. You're destroying what's left of a work ethic already eroded by years of employment instability. I'm tearing down what few shreds of commitment you had left toward making this business a success.
Also, you treat me like I'm stupid, you blame other people for your own failings, and you're constantly angry because we're too busy to read your mind.
I don't see this turning out well, do you?
No, I didn't think so.
I tell you what. You try to stay off my last unripped nerve and we'll see if we can get through two days of togetherness next week without a major blow-up. After that, well, as soon as is practicable, we'll just arrange for a parting of the ways.
Sincerely,
Dissed and Disgruntled In Denver
Posted by AnneZook at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)I want to go over for coffee…or something. I finished a major project today (got that project done, loaded on all the boxes, and everything shipped) and I want to dink around for a few minutes. But DiamondGirl won't stop working.
Of course, I shouldn't tempt her. She spent30 or 40 minutes on a long, personal call this afternoon. She's probably behind schedule now.
I've decided that when I get back from this SF trip, I'm definitely going to put my resume back out there. While there are things I like about this place, mostly they are so minor that the stuff I don't like is monumental in comparison.
Can't say anything to Bernie, of course. Can't slack off working, either. In the first place, my conscience won't let me. In the second place, it could take me months to even get an interview, much less find another job. I can't take a chance on being out of work.
P.S. I would have whined more, but Buehler walked by and he was going to coffee so I went to go with him and then DiamondGirl decided she would go after all.
It is not upon me today.
It's cold. It's snowing. It's April. We must be in Colorado.
I think I'm finished with the massive re-writing and re-coding of Project #1. I had one question about it but I went ahead and did what I think should be done, rather than opening a whole can o'worms around it. (And it's a good thing I did. I found a numbering error that could have been embarrassing.)
Later today, I'll have Bernie proof it. (Whenver he comes out of his early-morning commuting stupor and opens his office door.) Then I can load the evaluation onto 50 electronic boxes and start packing them (and fifty bases and fifty cables and fifty power supplies and fifty locking cables) all up. With half a day to spare!
I have questions around Project #2, but it doesn't have to be finished until Friday, so I can e-mail those off to the client today.
Project #3 needs to be done tomorrow, but I only anticipate thirty minutes or so on that one. It's for a different client, not the conference one.
Project #4 is the one Bernie took on. (Dropping something off at the printer.) It's supposed to be done tomorrow.
I suppose, looking at that leisurely schedule, it seems that it was a waste of time for me to work five hours yesterday. I certainly had plenty of time to do that project today. Five home hours are much more productive than five office hours, though. (Anyhow. When I started, I didn't know it was only going to take five hours, did I? If I'd waited until today to do it and it had taken ten hours, I'd sure have been annoyed.)
DiamondGirl is out today. Jury duty.
I'm making massive numbers of copies of a document.
Mondays are not a thrill in my life.
In my mind, that's how it's spelled. My mind is a weird place.
I actually have nothing to say, but I'm typing anyhow. (Typical of me.)
I'm feeling diet-virtuous today. I had chikin for lunch and chikin for supper. Granted, the first was Mongolian Chicken from Pei Wei's (the lower-cost, faster service version of P.F.Chang's) and the supper was 5-Spice Asian Chicken (from a magazine recipe).
Still. I could have eaten something worse. (Ed. - You mean like the three bowls of potato chips and the seven chocolates you ate between meals?) (Me - Shaddup.)
We're having a hailstorm. When they installed the covered parking, it seemed like a good idea but some days I do wish they'd found something besides corregated aluminum for manufacturing material.
The beginning of the storm was interesting.
Bonk! Pause.... Bonk! Bonk! Pause.... Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tattattattat.
Then it rained, too, for about two minutes. Now the sky out east is pitch-black.
Must be tornado season again, huh?
Today I worked for about five hours. Bernie should be glad that my work ethic is stronger than my spite-gene. If I were more spiteful and less-ethical, I'd have only worked on the project during the hours he's actually paying me...and it would not have gotten done on time.
I'm not that person, though.
I didn't quite finish all the changes but, assuming I haven't introduced any major weirdnesses into the navigation code, I should be able to finish in half a day tomorrow.
I'm not at all sure he deserves me.
In other news, Doors Open Denver was fabulous this weekend. We had wonderful weather on Saturday. I enjoyed being docent for the model railroad group although I remain a bit bitter that I was do busy docenting that I never got to see the trains. Snif.
When you're volunteering at an event, people always assume you're Somebody. At the least, they assume you're Somebody with knowledge. Since the other five docents (those who were assigned to Union Station itself, where I was just supposed to docent the one exhibit) chose to linger outside in the glorious spring weather, it fell to me to chat with all the folks who wanted to know more about the building, the history, and the on-going preservation.
I did my research beforehand, but not on Union Station. In self-defense, I used my minutes of freedom here and there to read the historical display in the building and then to memorize a few salient facts from the history pamphlet that far too few copies of were available. (There's something wrong with that sentence, isn't there?)
Still. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
It's lovely to chat with folks roaming around timidly inside of buildings they'd never normally think of entering, or being allowed to enter. I
t was fun to talk with all the older folks who remember Union Station from 'way back when. It was fun to talk with the people who hadn't seen the model railroad display for years, and listen to them rave over how much it had been expanded.
It was fun to see the children's shining faces going into, and coming out of, the train room.
They need volunteers every year. You don't have to Be Somebody. I'm not Somebody.
You get a free t-shirt. And a meal coupon.
Posted by AnneZook at 07:34 PM | Comments (0)Fifteen minutes ago it was a lovely, peaceful Friday morning.
No longer.
You know the freaking client who was supposed to have data to me by Tuesday and who caught a break because no one told me that until Wednesday, so I gave them until noon on Thursday?
They left me the world's longest voice-mail last night to explain why they're changing everything and then going to discuss it with Bernie (who is sometimes mysteriously absent on his "working from home" days) before sending it to me. And, oh yeah, by the way, if I don't hear from them by noon I should call them because they might forget and she (the caller) has today off, so she can't follow up on it.
I hate getting mad this early in the morning. Trashes my whole day.
I had the data coded (in both formats and both versions) and now it's all going to heck.
I started to send Bernie an e-mail (twice) explaining that I'm busy this weekend and won't be available to work. I stopped myself.
It's not his fault I wasn't firmer with the client. (When I have a "noon, Thursday" deadline, I make the deadline. I've never, not in all my years of working, managed to adjust to how other people, well, don't live up to their business commitments. I'm the world's worst slacker and procrastinator in my personal life, but not at work.)
Assuming I'm still working here, I won't forget this again, and won't let it happen again, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm pissy right now.
(I swear to god, I think Bernie is half willing me to fail. The number and kinds of things he doesn't think to mention to me….)
Yesterday Bernie got totally rabid because an invoice he had me send a few weeks ago wasn't worded the way invoices to that client used to be worded before he and the Tweenybopper forgot to send any invoices for four months.
He got mad at me for not knowing how he did things before I started working here and he got really pissy with DiamondGirl because she should have known better…forget that she never saw the previous invoices and she didn't see this invoice because she's the software programmer not the freaking bookkeeper, and that he never specifically told her why he was mad at her and it wasn't until I backed him into a corner three hours later that I was able to make him explain himself.
I like DiamondGirl. The work in this job is going to prove, I think, to be very interesting, in spite of the current lack of focus or specialization.
But Bernie? He's rapidly turning into the deal-breaker.
…long silence…
So, I went and unloaded on Buehler about Bernie. He agrees, he already knew, that Bernie is burnt out and acting crazy.
Bottom line? He thinks Bernie is going to keep on being Bernie until he drives me and DiamondGirl away. After we quit, he'll be able to say the company closing isn't his fault (he's one of those people who will go to ridiculous, almost suicidal extremes to be "right" at all times and in all situations) and he'll walk away from it.
Which aggravates me because (a) I like having a job, (b) I really like having a paycheck, (c) I have some expensive amusements coming up that have to be paid for, and (d) it makes me feel like I was hired almost under false pretenses.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:35 AM | Comments (2)I decided to fix the coding instead of starting over. In the end, it only took about three hours to do the whole thing.
As I understand it, my predecessor used to take three or four days to do this. At the moment, yes, I'm feeling smug about my superior work ethic. (She could have worked faster if she wasn't IMing and e-mailing with six people at a time, all day, every day, plus making half a dozen personal phone calls. But…she was 22. And I? Am so not.)
Also, I'm feeling a bit smug because I know that Bernie, sexist pig that he all unwittingly is, misses his Cute Young Thing and finds me an insufficiently attractive and perky substitute. Still. He's gonna have to admit I can do the job.
(I'm tired of him telling me I won't be able to do the upcoming Conference without a mysterious and non-existent "book" that the Tweenybopper supposedly assembled for me.
I had five things to do. Code two surveys (both are done), load them (will do after final approval), ship them (ditto), and take a job to the printer (can't do until he turns loose of it and whatinthehell he's doing with it is a mystery to me since I took care of the limited amount of "designing" required before I handed it over to him to review).
My swiftitudiousness (is so a word) on the more complicated of the surveys (the one I was whining about yesterday) is due in no small part to Bernie having designated today as one of his "work at home" days. It's very peaceful here today. DiamondGirl and I are getting so much done that we felt free to stop working entirely and enjoy a leisurely, 30-minute lunch break.
However, said swiftitudiousness (is so) is probably due in much larger part to my being so literal-minded. When I studied Logic in college, I found it a joy. I find coding a program that uses simple logic to be…well, pretty simple. My brain is very linear. It coos over If-Then statements.
Bottom line is, I'm happy. I got a job done quickly and easily that I thought was going to be long and tedious. I'm full-up of nice Chinese food.
It did not snow yesterday or today and while it's also not 80 outside, it's a very nice day.
(Also? Today my bathroom is almost as clean as it was Sunday evening.
Because? 8:40 p.m. That's when I finished giving the bathroom its post-Snake cleaning last night. I'm doing laundry tonight, but I can feel a reprise coming over me. I'll be cleaning parts of the bathroom again on Thursday.)
He is snaking my bathroom!
There are globs of Black Crud everywhere!
And the smell! For the love of god, the stench!
I offered him (cute little plumber boy) a drink but he said he doesn't drink on duty. That's just as well. I don't think there's any alcohol in the house.
(This is why blogger beats LJ. I could never spam people's Friend Lists with this kind of serial posting.)
Posted by AnneZook at 07:10 PM | Comments (2)Hooray! The plumber man is here with a snake!
It's a big snake and he's a cute, little plumber boy.
Posted by AnneZook at 06:31 PM | Comments (0)I am here.
The sinks full of smelly, mysterious, black crud are here.
The only thing not here is the Little Man that the R.C. said was working on the problem.
I bailed out her bathroom sink and mine so that the overflow would stop dripping onto the floor and under the sink. I poured it down the kitchen sink which, oddly enough, doesn't seem to be stopped up.
Where are you, Little Man? You didn't leave me a note or anything.
I'm giving you five more minutes, then I'm calling your boss.
Posted by AnneZook at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)So, clearly it's almost always better to do a project from scratch than to fix up someone else's mess. Especially, in my experience, projects involving any kind of coding.
Almost always. Almost.
Because if the document you're working with is 148 pages inside of a proprietary piece of software, is it really?
But?
If there are navigation options on almost every screen, and 80% of those are changing? If some screens are being deleted and others added and others rearranged?
Is it better to just start over and do the weary work of inputting 148 pages of text again, just so you can build the navigation from scratch? Or is it better to take what's in there, even though you'll have to change 30% of the text? Should you tell yourself that tracking down the code and navigation problems that will inevitably arise from such an extensive re-editing will be easier than all that rekeying?
If "all that rekeying" consists of about 100-300 characters per screen, would it really be that much work?
Would I have been better off just getting started with the rekeying instead of sitting here brooding over these things for the past 13 minutes?
(If I get a call saying all of the sinks in the apartment are backed up and overflowing, should I just move to another city and change my name?)
Please do not send e-mails to me, copying other people, as a means to getting in little digs at said other people for things you've been angry at them over for two years.
It is counter-productive and not a little childish.
Sincerely,
Your Office, Employee, and Client Services Manager/Director
twitching
I'm off politics, at least for this weekend. I'm not reading the news, I'm not reading what other people are saying about the news, and I'm so bored with it all I can't imagine caring again.
I'm bored of fandom, not that I'm "in" fandom, but I'm bored of passion I don't share.
I'm bored of eating. I had a ridiculously stupid breakfast of tortilla chips and cheese and more food sounds far too tedious to contemplate.
Laundry awaits...but I'm bored of laundry. When is there not laundry that needs doing? Ditto the bathroom. Which needs cleaned. When does it not?
Piles of papers await sorting, mending awaits doing, shoes await polishing. Bah.
I've read all the new books I bought last weekend and I'm bored of the thousand or howeveremany others there are on the shelves.
It's a lovely, sunny day, but I can't think of a single thing I'd really enjoy doing if I went out into it.
I spent an hour drowning myself in quotes from The West Wing (and, not incidentally, noticing how many of them came from the Sorkin era). So long that my wistful desire to reimburse myself in that universe was sated, glutted, without opening a single DVD case.
The shelves are full of DVDs. Movies and television shows, none of which interest me at the moment.
My room is full of projects. Writing, drawing, painting, organizing projects.
Yawn.
Is it an excess of possibilities? Too many choices, so that I'm stymied to let my heart settle on just one? Or am I really so barren, so devoid of ambition that I only keep these things available to me as temptations to distract me from productive work Monday through Friday?
I feel the urge to talk. Or eat. Or shop. Sigh Or, I could do laundry. Blech.
Had training/orientation for Doors Open Denver today, then had lunch downtown. (Nothing exciting.*)
I got the building I chose, which is fun. Sometimes they have to move folks around to cover gaps, but I noticed I was the only one who signed up for the Denver Model Railroaders exhibit at Union Station, so I was pretty sure I'd get mine.
The R.C. is signed up for the Equitable Building, so if she gets that, we'll both be in clover. She'll be looking at polished brass, gleaming marble, and glorious stained glass all day, yeah, but I'll have trains! Maybe they'll let me push the buttons! (Not a chance.)
I'm on a 9:30 - 3:00 shift, which surprises me, since I'd thought the morning shift ended at 1:0, but whatever. (That probably explains why no one else signed up for it. An unusually long schedule.)
You Denver-area folks should come down next weekend. Most of the buildings are open from 10:00 - 4:00 and some of them are fabulous. There are tours, as well, even expert tours led by architects and suchlike, and it's all free. (Thanks, she said modestly, to the willliness of hundreds of folks to volunteer their time and energy.)
Some of these buildings are just amazing. I have a weakness for both history and architecture (of almost any era that preceded the steel-and-glass box fashion) and there are architectural treasures in downtown Denver I was completely unaware of.
______________
* Last week we were downtown (we are a lot, this time of year) and we ate at the Rialto Café. I had a rather delicious pasta dish and the R.C. had, IIRC, salmon. They were very nice dishes but it wasn't the memorable experience that someplace like the Rodizio is.
I'm fairly certain I was going to have one, before Ashlyn distracted me with thoughts of living in a hovel.
I'd be good at a hovel.
I'm good at making do. I could use twine and a twig to sew curtains out of old rags. Weave a weedy doormat. Make shelves out of flattened tin cans. In the winter, when it wasn't nice to go out, I'd spend my time smoothing lumps and filling holes in the dirt floor, making it perfectly smooth for when company came over.
I'd probably dumpster-dive to find a bit of carpet I'd put out only on special occasions.
I'd steal one of those cool tiny grocery carts from Whole Foods. I'd feel badly about it, but I'd do it. Maybe I'd spend some of my spare time rounding up other carts in the parking lot and taking them back to the store, to soothe my conscience.
Coffee would be a problem. I don't suppose hovel-dwellers get many lattes. I could put my French Press in my little cart and then take the used coffee grounds that Starbucks puts out for "mulch" and make some second-generation coffee.
I'm assuming it would be fairly nasty, but if they get used to seeing you around, the Starbucks people are very generous. I'll bet they'd sneak me the odd half-cup of unused grounds.
Note to my friends: Always remember and never forget that whatever track my brain gets started on first thing in the morning is where it stays all day. (Today's Hovel Theme is dedicated to Ashlyn and the magic of IM. Thankyouverymuch.)
She did remind me that I've been paying into the Social Security system for the past 30 years. That's less-consoling that it might be, considering that the dipshits in Washington are doing their best to bankrupt the program, but it's something. I guess.
Now I have a meeting.
It's an eye thing. When I get too aggravated or stressed, my eye twitches. I can feel it going at it like mad tonight.
I'm thinking it's already time Bernie and I parted ways, to seek our separate futures.
It's not just that my Tasks List is now two pages long with no billable work on it and he think we should work at least 50% on billable projects every week.
It's not even that he keeps saying he can't afford to pay us if we don't do more billable work every week, as demoralizing and de-motivating as such statements are, especially when repeated every 7-10 days.
You know what? It's not even that it's his own freaking fault we're not doing billable work since he hasn't brought any new work in in months. There is no billable work to do. (Why does he keep telling us he can't keep paying us unless we do billable work? Is he trying to frighten us into going out and selling the company's products and services ourselves?) (Okay, so mostly he says that to DiamondGirl, since she's the programmer, but we can't do what we do without her, so it comes to the same thing in the end.)
It's that of the 39 items on my Tasks list (at least 30 of which he identified as "top priority" when he handed them to me), only four of them bear any resemblance to each other. I mean, only four of them are the same kind of work. This is not a company that focuses on its core competencies because this is not a company that has identified core competencies.
(He says he'll take whatever work comes by, to keep the bills paid, and I can sympathize with that goal, but then he bids two hours for a project that a highly skilled graphic designer would need 16 hours to complete, not that we have a graphic designer on-staff, skilled or otherwise, and then he gets pissed when we can't do the work at all, much less in two hours. Am I crazy or is he crazy?)
In theory, we do surveys and evaluations for associations and conferences. We also do (opt-in only) e-mails to customer lists for those same clients. We help our clients talk to their customers and we help our clients gather feedback from their customers.
In the last month, the only projects he's been discussing have been based around e-commerce, graphics design, website design & support, Google Ads, and county fairs.
You can buy e-commerce website solutions off-the-shelf these days, graphics & website design are specialty areas and there's tons of competition out there, Google Ads is not a service we can charge a client much money for, and he's not popular enough with me to make me willing to give up my weekends for the entire summer to work county fairs all over the state.
Because he swore his life wouldn't be worth living and he wouldn't know how to go on if we didn't, we built him a new software application for a field he identified as "critical" to our success.
Upon further investigation, I have discovered that this field has no money and in any case, our resources wouldn't be sufficient to meet our needs if the field did have money. (Part of our laughable "core" competency rests upon a proprietary software program of limited capacity and for which the developer is no longer in business.)
Also? I am not traveling to Mexico to train a client who could perfectly easily be trained using an internet-based conferencing program. Nor am I traveling to Florida to spend two days being trained on the subtleties of a software program I already learned how to use. (Florida? In the summer?) Nor am I flying to California in late September, spending one day setting up a conference, then flying to Las Vegas for 24 hours to set up a conference and then move everything the next morning, after which I will fly back to California to finish the first conference.
Who am I? Joan Jet-setter? I am not.
Traveling on business is hell under the best of circumstances and he is not the best of circumstances. I'm not whipping 'round the world for him, at least not until he starts paying me a living wage.
And then before he left the office tonight, he was making noises about how expensive it is to pay health insurance for employees and how it's almost impossible to cover the costs.
I've been listening to him over the last month, and doing a lot of thinking. When he hired me, he told me he was discouraged and ready to walk away from the company if it didn't work out.
I think the truth is that he's burned out, he thinks that being a "consultant" would be a lot easier, and he just doesn't want to keep doing the work it takes to keep a small business going.
People always think being a "consultant" is a path to glory. They picture themselves roaming the country, being paid to tell other people what they ought to do and how, and then leaving town while the company gets on with finding the people and resources to do the actual work.
Any jackass can stand outside a situation and say how it could be better. Talent comes in making it better, but that's more work than the average "consultant" wants to get into.
So, yeah. Tonight I'm bitter. And twitching.
Okay, I actually caught ChaosBoy checking DiamondGirl's monitor, to see what she has open on it.
DiamondGirl left to run an errand for lunch.
Part of me is hoping she didn't leave anything non-work-related open (as we've all done occasionally) and part of me is just tired. It's bad enough he expects me to "mange" her when he won't stop intefering, but that level of...well, it's not exactly paranoia. That level of distrust, let's say, that just makes me not want to play at all.
(I only left my work e-mail and a work survey open on mine.)
Posted by AnneZook at 12:42 PM | Comments (0)That would be me. As many of you are already aware (Kids? You have kids?), I'm not the world's most attentive friend.
My brain isn't always on this planet and even when it is, it's frequently in a different time zone, or a different historical era. It might be busy pondering the impact of Cartesian dualism on 17th century philosophical thought, or musing bitterly on the absence of the jet-packs we were promised by the science fiction of my youth.
I might be inventing "after the book" lives for some fictional characters that have attracted my attention, or I might be engaged in a serious mental debate over the shades of different lipsticks, but the one thing I rarely am is thinking of anyone besides myself.
Anyhow. I just discovered that someone dear to me had a major heart attack in January. I was so wrapped up in my unemployment woes (and in whining about the weirdness of the temp work I was doing), that I hadn't actually talked with her in several months, so I had no idea this was going on.
I feel as badly as I always do when I make these discoveries. (How long have you had kids? Have I met them?)
I love my friends. I do. There aren't many of you, but you're all very important to me.
I swear, I'm going to start paying attention. Really. I am. (Although, you couldn't tell it by this entry since I notice that the word "I" appears more often than any other.)
So, how are the kids?
When September comes, I may have to go to California. And Las Vegas. I may have to work meetings in California and Las Vegas on the same day.
ChaosBoy wants a lot from someone he's not that willing to pay decently.
Today, I worked hard. Pretty much all day.
So much so that, unusually for me, I had only one e-mail exchange all day. It started with a pain, as so many things do.
That topic passed quickly (although less quickly than it might have, had I not taken 6-1/2 hours to respond to the e-mail announcement) and meatloaf took over.
It's not that I have a circle of friends who have a fascination with baked beef shards or anything. It's just that I made meatloaf over the weekend. Since I also made Giant Pot O'Soup, there's more food in the refrigerator than the R.C. and I can reasonably be expected to eat within, well, within a reasonable time frame.
All of which is by way of asking y'all if you know if meatloaf can be frozen or not. I've been assured that it can be, but I've never known anyone to do it. As I told the R.C., I don’t assume everything freezes, do you?
I don't know. It's not that meatloaf strikes me as a delicately balanced dish full of subtle nuances that might be lost in the freezing process (especially mine), it's just that I never thought of it before.
I don't like for things to be new and strange.
Speaking of new, strange, and unpleasant, today was Bookkeeping Day at the office. This means I spent 4-1/2 hours slowly and painstakingly generating invoices and writing checks, desperately trying to keep my dyslexia and my complete indifference to anything involving numbers from interfering with my (already limited) brain processes.
I was doing okay until I reached the rent, at which time something (or possibly several somethings) went horribly wrong.
I don’t know.
I got very confused.
The system is supposed to generate this bill on the first, automatically but it didn’t seem to do it this month, so I generated one, but then I couldn’t figure out how to make a partial payment, so I voided it and created two, one for each payment, and then the automatically generated one showed up, so I deleted the second two I’d generated and changed the amount on the automatically generated one to match what we were actually paying and generated a second one for the unpaid amount but when I print the first automatically generated one, it shows we paid the full amount and not the partial payment I put into it but when I look at it online, it shows the lower amount. And I can’t make it believe we paid last month, either.
I hate playing bookkeeper.
Yeah, ChaosBoy is out of the office today, but that doesn't mean I have the leisure to be planning the next 30 years in the lives of imaginary characters, now does it? Tell the fictional world to leave me alone while I'm at work.
In other news, I was scrounging around for a copy of the company holiday calendar since no one ever remembers what days this place was closed last year.
I finally found it and read the holidays, vacation, and sick leave policies for this particular sister company and whoa! Couldn't be more different than Buehler's tolerant attitude toward such tings.
I don't think I've ever seen such a set of stingy, hostile policies.
In fact, had I read this before I signed on here, I'm not sure I'd have signed on here. Unless practically every employee he's ever had has abused the living heck out of the sick leave policy, I'm not sure there's really any excuse for so much hostility.
Me, I've never abused a company's sick-leave policy in my life, but after reading this one, I seem to have a really strong urge to do so.
Posted by AnneZook at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)Not in the mood today.
This "tracking your time" thing could be a problem on days when you're jut not feeling productive. So far, I've only accounted for 1.25 hours of the 2.5 hours I've been here, and I've already padded each of the items on the list.
For the first month I worked here, I was stress-eating. I assumed it was from learning so much new stuff at once.
So far this month, I'm stress-shopping. (What's the point of going through this if I can't visit Amazon.com a couple of times a week?) $170.00 and counting, and it's only the fifth of the month.
I preferred working for Buehler. As long as he had enough money, he was perfectly happy to pay me to be in the office, chatting with him, sharing online shopping sites, and complaining about the daily news.
I'm not unaware of the probable connection between his casual attitude toward business and his eventual inability to pay me, but since Bernie keeps threatening that there won't be money after the end of this year if we don't all shape up (more on that in a minute), it still seems to me that I've traded Dr. Jekyll for Mr. Hyde.
It's not that Bernie is a monster or anything. I know I tend to exaggerate when I'm bored and blogging, so don't run away with the idea that he's the devil's own gift to the workplace.
It's just that he's…well, he's so fussy.
He fusses constantly.
What are you working on? Come help me archive my e-mail. Are you doing this? Did you do that? Can you teach me to be a graphic designer in sixty seconds or less? Why aren't you working on the other thing? This has to be done by the end of the day. We really should be doing this for the client even though they're not paying for it. Why are all those files Buehler and I pulled out of filing cabinets and stacked on the empty desk still not refiled with a whole new, efficient filing system? What's in all those binders with dates on them from three years before you worked here? Did you finish that thing I told you to do five minutes ago? Why not? What are you working on?
It's a constant stream of irritating interruptions, all day long, and only about 20% of the time, if that, are they questions about projects that really need to be at the tops of our minds at that moment, you know?
I may have to rename him ChaosBoy. I think that's his superpower.
Re: The money situation. After five weeks' of watching what we're doing (and not doing), I can confidently say that the problem isn't that DiamondGirl and I aren't doing "billable" work, it's that Bernie, or ChaosBoy, isn't able to bill for the work we're having to do to keep the accounts moving.
Part of it's that when he asks how long a job will take, and we tell him, he gets aggravated and says the clients won't pay for that, and he makes us revise the estimates downward.
Of course, you can estimate any number that you want, but if a software developer tells you it's going to take 6 hours to do something, anyone who doesn't tell the client it's going to take 10 or 12 hours, is crazy. And someone who tells the client we can do it in 4 hours is certifiable.
And, part of it is the clients themselves. He goes after clients he finds "interesting."
Now, I completely support anyone's desire to work with Not Evil Clients, but there's a difference between that and only going after accounts you find "interesting."
#1 - That fact that they're "interesting" doesn't mean that what we do is of use to them. When it isn't, and when we have to take on doing something entirely new, that takes longer and costs more. And we're not as successful at it because it's not our core competency.
#2 - Being "interesting" is not the same as having enough money to pay for the things you tell them we can do for them. If the client can't, or won't, pay for a service or product we offer them, then that's the end of it. If you want to do it anyhow because they're "interesting" and they "need it to succeed" then win the freaking lottery and finance it out of your own pocket. But stop threatening us with unemployment because you, as our salesperson, are not bringing any money in.
#3 - What's "interesting" to you isn't interesting to your staff. What we find challenging and rewarding isn't that you've found a new recycling company in the area, and one that wants products and services that are almost but not quite exacly different than what we're doing for anyone else. We can't use any of our established procedures and systems because what you're asking for today is not what they were designed for. People are flexible, yes, but computer programs are limited.
You're driving. Your software programmer. Entirely. Insane.
Anyhow. The next time we have a bit of free time, I'm going to have a more sensible sales strategy to offer you. One that will lead to clients that not only have money, but who have a real need for exactly what we do.
I know you're going to reject it, but I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried.
Bernie not only came in, he's strewing chaos and confusion all around the office.
Dork.
Posted by AnneZook at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)It's my understanding that Bernie will be out of the office for one, more glorious day. I hope that's true.
Contrary to all expectations, DiamondGirl and I have accomplished 90% of the "priority one" items on our respective To Do lists. The remaining 10% does include a few crucial items, but nothing we shouldn't be able to complete with ease tomorrow. As long as Bernie isn't in.
She has to design a form and alter an e-mail template. Not much I can do to help her with those. (I mean, I designed the
I have to.... I forget, but I know there's one more thing I have to do.
Tomorrow, in the intervals of getting these comparatively simple items completed, I intend to wallow in the luxury of No Boss Onsite. I may just go mad and walk over to Starbucks.
Since taking that painful (and already frequently mentioned) 20% pay cut for this job, I've started limiting my trips to Starbucks.
I've also started buying the things I can't live without (my shampoo, the good creme rinse, ) on sale. Or just buying cheaper brands of things where I've discovered I don't really care about "brand names." I think twice before not packing a lunch, reminding myself that $7 for "lunch out" would buy an awful lot of ingredients to make my own food.
Of course, in the intervals of all of this frugality, I sometimes go mad. I rather suspect that this weekend's Amazon shopping falls into the category. Just because something I haven't been able to find for less than $150 showed up for $49.99, was that any reason to buy it?
Probably not.
I did it anyhow, though. Ain't a bit sorry, either. (A little guilty, but not sorry.)
Tonight I honestly meant to do some drawing. Sadly, I wound up writing instead.
Ah, well. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will dig out my drawing supplies and get to work.
(I really didn't have anything to say.)
I have one of those every so often. Days when I tell friends that I'm booked up and can't go out and play. Days when I do (or at least start) the "stuff" that I'm always thinking of wistfully when I'm stuck in the office 5 days a week.
Today I cleaned the bathroom (floor, counters, mirrors, toilet, and medicine cabinet). Cleaned the mirror in the hallway and the sliding glass doors, including removing the sticky residue of glue still decorating them from Christmas '04. Gave the living room a lick-and-a-promise dusting and the same in my bedroom. Carried out trash. Cleaned out the I'm never going to eat this remnants of food in the refrigerator. The table in my bedroom is now tidy, but only because I got sick of it all and dumped everything in a box. The kitchen floor still awaits my attention.
Then I went out and bought two photo albums (A sale! Twofers!) because if I don't organize all of those photos into albums one day soon, not only will it never get done, but I'll forget who all of those people are anyhow. Sadly, I'm too tired to start that project today. Or maybe just too lazy.
With the exception of the bathroom, the place isn't "clean" but it's at least cleaner, so that's something. I no longer have to worry that something I pull out of the refrigerator is going to poison me. And looking out the doors at the gloriously sunny day is mighty-fine. (Or, was before the sun moved over the mountains.)
I love the spring and summer evenings, when it stays light longer. When I get home from work, it's still light out for hours and I get things done. (Oddly enough, for someone who is so totally not a morning person, I really don't function as well without natural light.)
I hate the first day of Daylight Savings because it's so short. I need all my weekend hours! Daylight Savings should start on Monday. At 9:00, to give us all a shorter workday.
But it should definitely keep ending on a weekend. Because longer weekend days are what we need.
Today I ate a handful of corn chips, a handful of potato chips, a handful of nuts, and two bite-sized chocolates. "Meals" like that are why I'm constantly having to go back on the diet.
Later this evening, I will be indulging in Hour Night, otherwise known as Hour Night In the Bathroom. I will hot-oil my hair, give myself a facial and a pedicure, inspect my eyebrows for any rebel hairs, and exfoliate in the shower, all followed up with a creamy smooth application of skin cream.
I love Me Day.
The only thing I didn't get get started was drawing. I swore to myself that I'd start practicing again. In spite of my instructor's preference for almost anything but my preferred, near-photographic approach, I was having a lot of fun with that game. I really do want to get back to it.
Maybe next weekend. (Or one evening this week! It will be light!)
Update: Then I spent three hours sorting old photos into photo albums. I may never look at them again, but by gosh they're organized!
Posted by AnneZook at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)