WUSS!

I mentioned earlier that my industry is a 24/7, 365-days a year business. There typically are no days off, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and maybe New Years. Certainly no banking holidays.

For years I have been highly critical of the government practice of
a.) passing out holidays like free money, and
b.) moving momentous dates around on the calendar to make said holidays more convenient to take.

For example, Columbus Day 2008 is on a Sunday, but in true government style, they're making Monday the holiday for a nice, long, three-day weekend. I would love to see a GAO report detailing what this wasteful practice costs you and me as taxpayers.

I must work on Good Friday.
I really don't mind it.
Less traffic, fewer phone calls.
It will be a somewhat tranquil day, by comparison.

I do resent, however, some in my business who think of what they do for us as a hobby, a mere afterthought, and who believe that any holiday is a holiday for them.

We have one individual who works from home.
He's paid good money for what he does.
Doesn't have to get dressed to do his job for us.
Doesn't have to commute.
Really has a plum situation.

You guessed it: He wants off for Good Friday.
Flippin' wuss.

Juvenile!

We work with a lot of different, difficult clients. They all have egos the size of battleships, which must be stroked as well as managed-- and in some cases manipulated a little to our advantage. Hey that’s life.

Sometimes they cross swords, and that’s when stupid decisions are made.

Recently the underling of one of these people was implicated (wrongly, I believe) in a bash-session at a party. Alcohol was flowing freely, and although the underling did not partake, he was fingered as the source of several unsavory comments directed towards our CEO.

Hmm, who do you want to believe, someone else’s sober employee or your own, inebriated lush?

Now, the edict has come down from the mountain top that this person is not to be communicated with, even though he is the conduit to a major client. Isn’t that the most intelligent move you’ve ever heard?

This is a high-maintenance client, too.
We call them PITA’s—Pains In The Ass.
Even have a framed Golden PITA Award we circulate around the office.

So what’s the best way to manage a high-PITA client?
Communication.

What’s this juvenile delinquent’s solution?
Ignore the client’s messenger.
Unbelievable.

Apparently, PITA is a contagious condition.

Stupid Idiots

Like the scene in the movie, "The Sixth Sense," where Haley Joel Osmont tells Bruce Willis, "I see dead people everywhere," I feel like I am stuck in an endless loop with idiots.
I see stupid people everywhere.
Or maybe they're just brainstems with legs.

The aforementioned Mensa, for example, who inexplicably believed the rules for Daylight Saving Time would be suspended the day after we turned clocks forward...

The moron in the Toyota Corolla this morning that slid over to the left, lane by lane, until he was comfortably installed in the inside, fast lane...going 50mph.
Meanwhile irate drivers swerved around him at 80mph.
Stupid idiot.

I realize that's ridiculously redundant.
But so are the boneheaded stunts some people pull.

Like one woman in our office, who turned off the air system because it was too cold in her office, and the rest of us roasted for two days' worth of meetings in the adjacent conference room, until the building engineer discovered what she'd done.
Bring a freakin' sweater.
Leave the @#$% thermostat alone.
Stupid idiot.

Mensa's On the Loose

How many problems could be avoided if only instructions were followed the first time?
I try to give a lot of notice and a lot of detail to my people, so that there’s as little chance for error as possible.
Basically, if my people look good, I look good.
If my people screw up…

Daylight Saving Time impacts different businesses in different ways. The “additional hour” of light presents some unique opportunities for us: An additional hour to do business…and an additional hour to manage.

My boss’ solution was to ignore the change.
However, just “turning it off” is not an option.
Our Controller really dropped the ball, however, thinking that Sunday’s time change miraculously would not be in effect the following day. She failed to update critical systems to reflect that reality.

Brilliant!

So I get a phone call at home on Monday evening, wanting to know what to do to fix the problem. I was happy to give my recommendation for a manual fix, 90-minutes before the fact. But when the Controller started sassing back about how much trouble it was going to be, I snapped.

“It wouldn’t be a problem if you’d followed the directions I issued last week, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I said. “You called for help, which I am happy to give, so let’s focus on that part for now,” I continued.

The CFO backed me, saying yes, the instructions I gave were pretty clear. She had had a week’s notice to get it right.

This is the same Mensa that ignored/repudiated/blew-off my instructions for a weekend project that has been a fiasco for the past three weeks. She even got another employee in on the gambit, and together they figured out a way to create a situation that was hopelessly FUBAR.

They disregarded specific instructions for structuring the project in such a way that if one machine failed, a second one would continue to run. She cut corners and copied an operational template from one machine to another--without adjusting the configurations for that specific machine.
No wonder it didn't work.

I had it fixed in about 20-minutes.

The real irony in today's fiasco is that this beyotch last week sent to my staff an e-mail--almost in an end-run around me--reminding them of the time change, and asking whether they had their act together.

Busybody...fallow mind.

TURKEY!

You really know a person is a worthless turkey when they can manage to disrupt your office even after they've left the company.

I received a call this morning from a former executive who had been "separated" under such onerous circumstances they had to drag in a lawyer to mediate the divorce.
Four months ago.
This piker had schlepped some of his personal furniture into the office suite when he started here, and wanted it back.
Now.

Seriously, the guy calls at a quarter to eight in the morning to announce his movers will be here at ten to pick up his stuff. Thanks for the notice, you creep.

Three Hermann Miller (oooh!) office chairs and a white board in a conference room.
Not a dry erase board on an easel, mind you.
No, this sucker is anchored into the studs and sheet rock.
When it comes out, it's going to leave a large hole.
He wants it now.
Has to have it today.

I told him he would have to give us a little time to arrange to have the thing removed; there were back-to-back meetings scheduled for that conference room all day long.

When he asked to speak to someone else about this (remember, it's an hour and 15-minutes before the office opens), I suggested he speak to one of the partners, a former Air Force Colonel, who likes this guy even less than me.

Within the hour, moving men were rapping on our door, wanting his stuff. I gave them the chairs and an IOU. We'll probably just offer the jerk some more money so he can go buy another white board somewhere else.
Like he needs it.
Meanwhile, two people showed up for work this morning with no chairs in their work spaces.

What a great legacy to leave behind at a place you've worked. A crappy taste in everyone's mouth, and a few gaping spaces to remind us we're glad he's out of here.