I don’t know the full story, but I think it’s because the Alpine unit had Bluetooth. In Australia it is illegal to touch your phone at all while driving - that goes for when you’re stopped at lights too - so I’d suppose, with $luser being a sales rep, it was done as part of providing tools of the trade. Why they didn’t just buy a separate Bluetooth car kit is beyond me, however.
Dear $Boss,
You have an office. Please use it instead of hanging out in our work area most of the day.
You know, @Force10, I am sure the boss would find something else/more useless to do if you told every caller “Hey, Boss is here, I’m sure he/she can answer that better than I could.”
1 Like
Mini (well long) work vent: One of the Tec guys tried to throw me under the bus and backhandedly went to my manager about the “filthy” tables at the computer stations, despite my starting to clean them a few weeks back. I think it was a little because he has been unable to fix the auto-boot issues with the stations. Today 15 minute before opening he told me to be sure to tell him which stations auto booted and which ones didn’t. I asked when they were supposed to be on, and he said 30 minutes before opening. I told him then all of them were late. At opening I physically turned on all the stations, and none of them would connect to the server. I went to find him, and his station was on but he was nowhere to be found. After using the Roy Technique (turning it off and back on again) on the server, all my patron stations became available. Is a good thing I am not afraid of technology (despite it kicking me when I was down in my attempts for higher education) as I know coworkers in this system who would have just called it a day until our ‘tec’ guy could be located. {growl} TL:DR - Techie is nice to my face, complaining about me behind my back, and vanishing when he is supposed to be available.
Document document document.
4 Likes
/rant begin
To be compliant with our contract we need at least one person be VMware certified. $co-worker was sent to a VMware 4 training class (required class to take the exam) back in 2013. He never took the exam and his VMware 3 cert has expired. I put in a request to take a slightly more in-depth class to also take the exam because it’s the one cert I really want. Problem is the class and the test combined is like $5.5k. But my boss said it should be no problem getting it approved so I put the training request in. In Feb 2013. I’ve had to redo the class request twice, once because they no longer offered it (v4 to v5) and again when it was upgraded (v5 to v5.5). I also put in reminders every several months to try and get it pushed through. Every time I ask, I get a ‘I’ll look into it’ and never hear from anyone again until I bring it up. Yet $co-worker isn’t being brought to task that he’s never taken the test and my boss got a big cert that they turned around and paid for too. So screw it. I cancelled the request plus a Linux class I wanted to take because you have to sign a 1 year contract thing for these trainings. I’ll take my own classes and get the hell out of here.
/rant end
1 Like
That story sounds so bloody familiar.
According to the Boss, we have an $800 per head training budget for the entire year. Nope. Once you speak to the right people and run all the numbers, it’s really up around $2.5K. Enough for one reasonable course or even a small conference. But do you think any of us will ever see that?
Hey, you. Yes, you. You’re using a telephone, not a tin can and a piece of string. Turn it down or take it outside.
1 Like
I told you the UPS in the rack was crap. Don’t be bitching at me because the entire environment went down. I told you to replace it over a month ago.
Oh… and it wasn’t just yesterday that I didn’t want anyone to bother me. That’s me all the time. Go away!
1 Like
Oh and my boss was surprised when he told me this morning that he was going to look into the one Linux course I had put in and I told him I had cancelled them all. So he just now came in to tell me to resubmit them both and one of them will probably get approved. I’m skeptical. So we’ll just do nothing for a week and see if he pushes me to do it. Then I’ll still say no.
I understand the user is in our neck of the woods today (near our SF office), but you should really try calling the tech from his home office first (NY, in this case). I have no clue what’s been done to this guy’s laptop and you obviously won’t bother getting extra details so why not go straight to the people who deal with his problems directly?
And to this guy who often wants help for big issues at the worst times, why don’t you prioritize them a bit better. It’s your time being wasted, not ours.
Kind of in the same boat here. $Boss told me to get training, so I set a date. We’ve got kids and this course requires travel, so Mrs. P57 takes a week off of work to watch and care for the kids. I’m then told that they won’t approve the flight (but the $4K class is fine). No travel budget. Mrs. P57 can’t get her hours back. She enjoys a week off. I’m told to reschedule for another class that’s coming up. I’d rather not repeat this. We can’t really afford for her to take another unpaid week off.
I have booked a junior damager course via work sometime in October.
All job hunting is now put on hold, until after the course, when I will resume my job hunting.
Will see what happens. So far HR have confirmed the course is booked, but I haven’t signed any paperwork yet…
Holding thumbs that the “paperwork” is conveniently forgotten as I don’t want to remain here any longer…
The waiting is probably (hopefully) more excruciating then the discipline. I can only hope.
This place has trouble retaining competent people. You either get a competent person and they find a better offer in a year or two, or you don’t bother rewarding the formerly-incompetent once they become very competent so they end up leaving after six years or so, leaving the IT dept in the office in a state of disarray similar to a headless chicken.
And you wonder why I don’t panic when the shit hits the fan. Sorry, the firm brings it upon itself. I do what I can with what I got and if I don’t have much, don’t expect much.
1 Like
That’s cool that you are genuinely trying to keep me happy and retain me, but we need to be clear: that’s not actually within your power. There’s nothing you can offer me to make me happy in this job, and that’s assuming that I believed your offer. The most you can hope for is a graceful exit.
4 Likes
I presume you know well enough not to place demolition charges on your bridges once they’re behind you.
Tempting, but it’s a really small community. One of the reasons I need to leave is so they still remember me fondly when I’m gone because I will likely be working with (and possibly fighting alongside someday) these people for at least another decade.
I can certainly understand that. I’m in the same boat.
I thought @sig was in the Army, not the Navy.
2 Likes