One actually blurred out her toes. Which got me thinking that either they are ugly toes or she didn't want me to have pictures of her feet.

So yes. All cuties @ness

No cuties. Feet are nasty. You are a better person than I Foos . 

So, I'm at day 7 of my 10 day trip to China.

Highlights:
Colleague/Friend from the UK having a mini stroke and me having to take him to a Chinese hospital and arrange everything through Google translate. By the way, from what I saw the Chinese Public Health System is amazing.

I am just off the back of 3 days holed up on bed with a stomach virus that had me in the bathroom every 25 minutes. I got in trouble for not telling my supplier they arranged a heap of medication to get delivered to my hotel room yesterday and I'm improving.

It's not a glamorous life this international travel business.

My site Maintenance guy keeps sending me orders with no totals or quotes attached. He's supposed to provide me a quote/pricing or ask me to get pricing so the site Super can approve the order.



...So I guess I'm just making up numbers now? 

After 3 times of me having to go back and ask, the Site Superintendent lays the smackdown on him verbally via email with everyone copied. 

Not an hour later, he does it again.



Dude! Seriously? So, I lay a Bill Lumbergh (Office Space - UT 's favorite movie) meme on him and hope to diffuse the situation with a bit of humor, because I'm on the phone with the site Super about another matter and he just about detonates. Luckily that appeases him, makes him laugh and stops him from going postal. 

Never underestimate the power of a well placed meme or gif in the work place. 

Office Space? I don’t get tagging me….

So tired...

Just back from a 4 day trip to Italy.
Some of my flights got cancelled and rescheduled so I did the 5th longest flight in the world.

MEL - PER - LHR - VCE

Then

PSA - LHR - SIN - SYD - MEL

I had a 7hr stopover in London on the way back.
It's only that it was business class that I'm still upright

Not so much of a bitch as a funny thing that happened today.

I noticed they set up my new Project Shipping ID as SKIN TANK FARM instead of Skid Tank Foundation. It printed out on all my PO's so I sent out of bunch of orders for a project that sounds like it's something out of Silence of the Lambs.

I've decided I dislike Civil works vendors

I send: Please confirm receipt of this order and advise any pricing changes and ETA

Them: Received

:suspic:

And not just 1 vendor...all 6 so far.

Reading comprehension is poor at best. I do a lot of internal training at my agency. I do follow ups via email for policies and procedures. I have phone calls and consults all the time, I try to acknowledge that everyone learns differently.

At the end of the day, if there's more than one piece of information or detail it will be ignored.

I get that 100%, but they do the same thing every day, multiple times a day. I'm not an anomaly. Order confirmation with price and ETA is LITERALLY their job as much as relaying that info to site is mine. So if they aren't doing theirs, I can't finish mine.

I just want it all in one email instead of 5 emails back and forth. Is that too much to ask? :lol:

Offices is starting to fall apart and I'm beyond burnt out. I have so much responsibility with none of the authority. I almost wanna sit the management team down, probably on deaf ears so I'm actually heavily considering moving up in maintenance because in some ways I feel like I'm being wasted and held back. Not easy to just slide in, but it's probably time to make sure I have a decent spot on the exam register so when a spot opens up I can. I resisted before out of fear and complacency but I'll say one positive of my brief run with therapy was the annoying question they always asked... why do you feel that way?

I always hated when they do that because certain statements I always felt should just automatically be taken as fact. Harder to do when you have to justify it beyond just pure self loathing. And I can't realistically say that I would be a bad area maintenance guy. Hell I do all but the most extreme stuff in my office so I've effectively turned my office into a free space to whoever has it on their route. I don't know everything, but to act like I'm closer to knowing nothing is an outright lie. Hell there's a few instances where I knew more things than the new maintenance people.

To prepare for this move I'm 99% decided to move forward with taking the HVAC certification master class whatever for recreation, that way if and when I do make the transition I'll have the knowledge. And who knows maybe I'll be better equipped in dealing with our ancient system which no one besides myself seems to fussed about fixing, heat wave be damned. They have their own internal training but I'd have to actually have the job before that. They want you "teachable" more than a journeyman, so I'm probably there already but if I'm not quite forklift certified I'll feel more confident with the move.

More money will help sure and by time I move we'll have a new contract or two so pay will probably be better. Course when I finally do move up they'll probably have eliminated my tier 2 pay scale prison from my old position because that's always what happens when you change lanes. One reason I've been hesitant to sign up for this adult education course besides the price is the commitment. 4 hour block 4 days a week, none of which are on my off days. I'm usually pretty tired after work so that's a hefty ask of me going forward. One positive aspect is I called my parents, well moreso Dad and he said he would help paying for it even if it meant having me just get a student loan and just pay it off quickly after it's all done.

I love my job, definitely Heat diner scene vibes to it, but maybe it's time for something more fulfilling while still staying with the company. Plus with all the insane shakeups in the coming years having my name attached to more job potential can only help with all the excessing and consolidation as these MBA CAWs try and turn us into Amazon ignoring that there's no profit to be made in a service that goes to every address. But what do I know I'm just an idiot janitor...

Jun 20, 2024 21:54:51 GMT @ness said:

To prepare for this move I'm 99% decided to move forward with taking the HVAC certification master class whatever for recreation, that way if and when I do make the transition I'll have the knowledge.

I love this for you! I think if anything more arrows in your quiver can only be a good thing for you and your willingness to move forward and up.

You are certainly no idiot!

I'm starting to think the office's HVAC simply needs to be trashed and replaced with something new. Had a contractor out today and they commented that it was outdated. Yeah welcome to the postal service. Maybe that's the issue. Management was always fucking with the temp and wasn't willing to be proactive with me, but maybe the system just doesn't work anymore. I mean if maintenance is tinkering with it dozens of times a year and it never gets fixed... maybe it just needs to be put down? No idea if they'll have it fixed when I come in tomorrow, but if they did I just wish they'd leave it the fuck alone. If you're not willing to pony up and fix it right, then you need to pick your poison. The head boss has to be a reptile because they're always complaining it's cold and they even have space heaters going on 24/7 in their office while everyone else is sweating their ass off. Yes sitting at a desk won't warm you up like manual labor, but at some point maybe it's just you?

Last year after I called osha contractors did get it working but it died a few months later. Maybe she can't be saved.

Can you make heads or tails of the thermostat? Because I've never been able to. Not that it matters since it never seems to get a proper reading from the boiler room. I'm just completely lost and a little scared because the classes I'm taking have advertised state of the art equipment and we're still using shit from Fred Flinstone's day. Ordered a few beginner's books to look over before I head to my meet and greet at the school in a week. We'll see.

Definitely an older model, but it's actually in way better shape and newer than some of the ones I see. On one site everything is so dated I often have to buy off ebay to find replacements or refurbishments because they won't update.

Is there a manufacturer label or serial/model number on the cover anywhere? The bad thing about a lot of thermostats is they can be a long lead ETA depending on the manufacturer and type. I have a hard time with Honeywell.

Jun 25, 2024 21:38:59 GMT @ness said:

I'm starting to think the office's HVAC simply needs to be trashed and replaced with something new. Had a contractor out today and they commented that it was outdated. Yeah welcome to the postal service. Maybe that's the issue. Management was always fucking with the temp and wasn't willing to be proactive with me, but maybe the system just doesn't work anymore. I mean if maintenance is tinkering with it dozens of times a year and it never gets fixed... maybe it just needs to be put down? No idea if they'll have it fixed when I come in tomorrow, but if they did I just wish they'd leave it the fuck alone. If you're not willing to pony up and fix it right, then you need to pick your poison. The head boss has to be a reptile because they're always complaining it's cold and they even have space heaters going on 24/7 in their office while everyone else is sweating their ass off. Yes sitting at a desk won't warm you up like manual labor, but at some point maybe it's just you?

Last year after I called osha contractors did get it working but it died a few months later. Maybe she can't be saved.

Can you make heads or tails of the thermostat? Because I've never been able to. Not that it matters since it never seems to get a proper reading from the boiler room. I'm just completely lost and a little scared because the classes I'm taking have advertised state of the art equipment and we're still using shit from Fred Flinstone's day. Ordered a few beginner's books to look over before I head to my meet and greet at the school in a week. We'll see.

@ness do you own a multimeter?
I'm guessing the knob you turn is a potentiometer, which is a variable resistor over time they just wear out. Shouldn't be too hard to check with the power off and a multimeter.

Certainly an idea I'll swing by if I ever catch them tinkering with anything as I know the outside guys have them.

Let's talk about email in the workplace. I'm a low level employee so I have fairly limited visibility of the bigwigs communicating, but it seems the higher up you are, the less you have to write.

My emails, and those of my European colleagues, take the form:

[Greeting <name>],

[Introduce the subject]

[One or two paragraphs of explanation/questions]

Kind Regards,

[Signature]

My American colleagues rarely include the greeting (who has time for basic manners?), but the rest is typically present.

The higher up the job title, the more is stripped away from the message. In fact I received my shortest email a few days ago, from a Senior VP. It went exactly like this.

approved.

There wasn't even any spacing above or below the message. As compact as possible. No email signature, obviously. The corporate bigwigs are above company policy.

Clearly I'm cherry picking, I don't imagine the typical SVP email is that curt, but among the higher ups there is a universal lack of greeting, the bare minimum text used to convey the message, email signature is optional.

It's strange because I would expect that the higher up you are, the more well-structured your email should be. And I'm sure they do write like that when communicating with clients, all pleasantries included. I guess the worker grunts are not worthy of their attention.

Jun 27, 2024 20:44:32 GMT Emperor said:

Let's talk about email in the workplace. I'm a low level employee so I have fairly limited visibility of the bigwigs communicating, but it seems the higher up you are, the less you have to write.

My emails, and those of my European colleagues, take the form:

[Greeting <name>],

[Introduce the subject]

[One or two paragraphs of explanation/questions]

Kind Regards,

[Signature]

My American colleagues rarely include the greeting (who has time for basic manners?), but the rest is typically present.

The higher up the job title, the more is stripped away from the message. In fact I received my shortest email a few days ago, from a Senior VP. It went exactly like this.

approved.

There wasn't even any spacing above or below the message. As compact as possible. No email signature, obviously. The corporate bigwigs are above company policy.

Clearly I'm cherry picking, I don't imagine the typical SVP email is that curt, but among the higher ups there is a universal lack of greeting, the bare minimum text used to convey the message, email signature is optional.

It's strange because I would expect that the higher up you are, the more well-structured your email should be. And I'm sure they do write like that when communicating with clients, all pleasantries included. I guess the worker grunts are not worthy of their attention.

Typically the higher up you get the more emails you need to respond to or approve. Creating a long email for each one would eat up too much time. Emails missing signatures or capitalization (as above example) were probably written on a phone.

Ah, emails from a phone makes sense. I never do it because I'm at a computer all day so it never occurs to me that others might.

I get my orders 'approved' via email from some sites as the 'bosses' are in the field and as Gyro said are using their phones. So many of my emails say 'approved' and that's it and I have to save and attach those emails to my Purchase Order in our ERP system.

Jun 27, 2024 21:20:41 GMT Gyro LC said:

Jun 27, 2024 20:44:32 GMT Emperor said:

Let's talk about email in the workplace. I'm a low level employee so I have fairly limited visibility of the bigwigs communicating, but it seems the higher up you are, the less you have to write.

My emails, and those of my European colleagues, take the form:

My American colleagues rarely include the greeting (who has time for basic manners?), but the rest is typically present.

The higher up the job title, the more is stripped away from the message. In fact I received my shortest email a few days ago, from a Senior VP. It went exactly like this.

There wasn't even any spacing above or below the message. As compact as possible. No email signature, obviously. The corporate bigwigs are above company policy.

Clearly I'm cherry picking, I don't imagine the typical SVP email is that curt, but among the higher ups there is a universal lack of greeting, the bare minimum text used to convey the message, email signature is optional.

It's strange because I would expect that the higher up you are, the more well-structured your email should be. And I'm sure they do write like that when communicating with clients, all pleasantries included. I guess the worker grunts are not worthy of their attention.

Typically the higher up you get the more emails you need to respond to or approve. Creating a long email for each one would eat up too much time. Emails missing signatures or capitalization (as above example) were probably written on a phone.

I think you nailed it.
This is actually a preference, in my line of work the majority of my dealings are with customers and I have to be diplomatic, my customers have no such constraints.
In the future, it will just be hey ChatGPT say approved with a friendly but professional tone....

Hang on, I am going to try this with my Copilot... I will update the thread.

Give me "Approved" any day...
It would have actually done a better job if I asked it to respond to an actual email rather than writing the prompt.

Sometimes I wish I had emails/meeting (Billy Madison scene here) but it'd probably make the disinformation/reactive nature of postal leadership even worse. Feel like half my interactions at work should be "you tell me?" or "talk to leadership" - like dude why does everyone think I'm in charge? I wish I had the authority to make these decisions.

I did my first union thing today. I'm not sure I'm cut out for this. I shouldn't be agreeing with management. Feel like I failed in my duty.

On a plus side my time card shows 0.64 hr of steward duty time. ACKNOWLEDGE ME!

With great power, comes great responsibility.

Today I had to take an hour long mandatory workshop entitled Living Our Values put on by a Talent and Experience Manager in our company. All staff across the board have to take it so it wasn't punishment, though it felt like it.

They've recognized we have Company Culture issues, especially among the various silos or divisions so they've been sending out quarterly Culture surveys and now comes the Culture workshops. I actually have no issue with attending, except I don't find this workshop did anything to identify the actual issues brought up on the surveys or provided any solutions for them, so there was no return on investment for anyone's time IMO.

Also, what the blue hell is a Talent and Experience Manager? Is that like a Recruiter? HR? Or a combo of the two?

Aug 16, 2024 4:32:13 GMT iron maiden said:

Today I had to take an hour long mandatory workshop entitled Living Our Values put on by a Talent and Experience Manager in our company. All staff across the board have to take it so it wasn't punishment, though it felt like it.

They've recognized we have Company Culture issues, especially among the various silos or divisions so they've been sending out quarterly Culture surveys and now comes the Culture workshops. I actually have no issue with attending, except I don't find this workshop did anything to identify the actual issues brought up on the surveys or provided any solutions for them, so there was no return on investment for anyone's time IMO.

Also, what the blue hell is a Talent and Experience Manager? Is that like a Recruiter? HR? Or a combo of the two?

There was a very famous business consultant years ago who our forward the idea of culture. I think it was Peter Drucker, his famous quote was: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast"
The point as I understand it was that culture startsat the top and should permeate through the whole organisation. The idea of having a strategy for creating a culture... Is kind of hilariously wrong headed.

Does it have " culture " issues, or does it have a culture that doesn't align with someone's idea of one?

I've seen People & Culture Partners and similarly named title holders destroy perfectly good workplace culture in a bid to instill its own version of one.

Just remember, all of these people with these fancy wokey titles aren't here for you - their job is look after the company's interests first and foremost and " culture " is just a fancy word for a set of rules and ideals they'll use to govern.

We had the term " culturally unfit " thrust upon us, it didn't necessarily mean the person was bad or not a good performer but it was a clever way to exclude someone if an opportunity presented itself and they wanted to rule out someone. Usually a seasoned vet with independent thinking or someone lacking polish, or, well.. I don't want to get into the DEI stuff.

If it feels like this sort of reading of the riot act is a surprise and unjustified, my spider senses would be telling me there's some changes coming and they'll either have a new set of rules - call it culture - to determine who is who in the zoo or to ensure accountability, especially when there might be some push back.

Aug 16, 2024 10:01:23 GMT NATH45 said:

Does it have " culture " issues, or does it have a culture that doesn't align with someone's idea of one?

I've seen People & Culture Partners and similarly named title holders destroy perfectly good workplace culture in a bid to instill its own version of one.

Just remember, all of these people with these fancy wokey titles aren't here for you - their job is look after the company's interests first and foremost and " culture " is just a fancy word for a set of rules and ideals they'll use to govern.

We had the term " culturally unfit " thrust upon us, it didn't necessarily mean the person was bad or not a good performer but it was a clever way to exclude someone if an opportunity presented itself and they wanted to rule out someone. Usually a seasoned vet with independent thinking or someone lacking polish, or, well.. I don't want to get into the DEI stuff.

If it feels like this sort of reading of the riot act is a surprise and unjustified, my spider senses would be telling me there's some changes coming and they'll either have a new set of rules - call it culture - to determine who is who in the zoo or to ensure accountability, especially when there might be some push back.

It's to pay lip service for outward appearances.
A business might say it's values are
Safety, environment, quality, respect and innovation.
If you take too long or your idea doesn't work there's a line of people waiting to throw you under the bus.

That is a blame culture and it's rewarded, that's why it exists.
Someone said to me earlier this year, "wherever you hold the carrot, that's where the donkey goes"
I think about that a lot.