Submitted by:  Darlynn on 06/16/2009 at 13:25:45

Thank you for your feedback and proving my point!

We all have people we work with that are easier to work with and the ones that are not as easy to work with.  Since this is in the "Rants!" section, one guess to which type this is about..... yes, one that isn't so easy to work with.

I am a customer-facing field engineer that relies heavily on the team behind me.  The main couple people I will interface with for an account, will change from account to account - but from a limited pool so I will work with the same people over the course of the weeks and months.

The one particular person seems to do his best to provide the least amount of information possible - to the point you have to ask for more information.  He also is tri- or quad- lingual so will work on accounts where English is not the native tongue.  For one account, I asked for an English translated version of his notes for those of us that aren't multi-lingual.

After asking again and again for translations (since he didn't decide to do it every time) and needing to send 3-4 emails every time he sent an email just to get a precise, yet accurate, idea of the point of the email then, having him treat me like a first year intern (with more than a dozen years in the field, with a few certifications and am well respected within my organization for my abilities) - one final straw broke the proverbial camels back.  I asked him to get 5 pieces of information from a customer.  I followed this up with an email with those 5 items summed up in 3 bullet points.  After I got the data uploaded (and he pointed me to the wrong case) - I realized he was missing something - so I email "I'm missing x item".  Upon reviewing the remaining items, one item was totally the wrong item, so I said "I also need this".

I finally had a short talk with his boss and just said this one person was one of the "not as easy" persons to work with and shared a few reasons.  Then yesterday, had to send the boss a note requesting, again, all non-English notes be translated.

The boss circled back to me with feedback from the person.  His feedback was "it would be helpful if she asked for everything she wanted in one list so I don't to keep going back".

Well, I can take constructive criticism well, but in this case - I did request it all in one list and followed up in an email.  Thank You for proving my point, exactly!  That being, he needs to be more careful in his work!

Careful when you try to blame someone else to explain your mistake.... it may just prove you're to blame!

Submitted by:  Samadhi on 06/04/2009 at 06:25:11

I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning; Smells like victory!

I'm confident that my commute to and from work will eventually drive me over the edge and they'll have to talk me down from a water tower somewhere, but every now and then there's a minor victory that helps to pull me through.

Each and every morning, the onramp from Highway 9 (immortalized by Springsteen in "Born to Run", but I digress) to the Garden State Parkway backs up for about 3/4 of a mile.  Each and every morning, self-important jackasses cause this backup by attempting to cut into the queue near its head.  This invariably drives me into a frenzy, since I'm one of those who sits and waits my turn.  Around a quarter mile from the exit, the divider between lanes turns solid and everyone except the worst, most obnoxious asshats tend to respect that point as the absolute limit of where they can get over.  Of course, there always have to be outliers and two or three idiots inevitably screw things up for the rest of us by seeing just how far they can press their luck before they cut over into the exit lane.

Generally, all I can muster is impotent rage when this happens; and it happens entirely too often.  Like this morning, for example.  When the young lady in the Honda cut me off 100 yards before the exit ramp, my only reaction was to shake my head and mutter profanity under my breath.  The car behind me, however, had additional options.  He flipped on his lights and siren and pulled her over.

It's the little things that get me through the day.

Submitted by:  Samadhi on 05/27/2009 at 08:20:52

An Open Letter to Building Management

It's May 26th.  Summer hasn't even officially arrived yet.  It's also pouring rain and barely 60F outside.  Is there anyone down there sentient enough to explain why the building's climate controls are currently set to "cryogenic stasis"?

I'm all for fighting global warming, but I can see my breath in here and there are icebergs floating in my coffee!  Maybe we can ease off a little bit until it's actually, you know, hot outside?

Thanks.  If you need me, I'll be in my igloo.

Submitted by:  Samadhi on 05/22/2009 at 05:59:59

Given that I haven't had a billable project for a month, yesterday I was summoned to a meeting with my HR representative.  She explained that, while I wasn't quite there yet, I was getting very close to the point where I'd be faced with an ultimatum: Find a paying gig or you're out of a job.  Am I the only one who sees the irony in that?

This organization is enormous; We have more middle-managers than you can shake a stick at and yet none of them actually does anything.  The minutae all ends up being the employees' responsibility.  So, despite the fact that we're not taking on any new business, it's still somehow my responsibility to find billable work?  That's ludicrous.

Honestly, if I have to work on my resume, do a formal job search, and interview to find work, I'm damn well going to do it for another organization where I at least have the possibility of getting a real salary as a result of the process! 

Discuss

Submitted by:  Samadhi on 05/04/2009 at 06:43:47

Happy Star Wars Day!

May the Fourth be with you. 

Submitted by:  Samadhi on 04/27/2009 at 13:03:53

Raiders: Your input wanted!

We've had a serious slowdown in the raiding of late and it's time we figured out what's up and what to do about it. 

If you're a raider, want to be a raider, read about raiders, dream about raiders, etc., I'd like your input on what we're doing and how we can do it better. In particular, I'm interested in hearing from those of you who may be newer to Archon and/or new to raiding.

Please visit the forums to offer your comments.  Thanks!

Submitted by:  Samadhi on 03/31/2009 at 09:55:52

From our People are Idiots Department:

I just had one of my co-workers come by my cube to complain and demand that I use headphones while listening to music as I was disturbing him.

He had to repeat it twice, since I had my headphones on the first time he said it...