What a day, what a night

Whew. Two doozies for you today. 

Our QA Manager, Speedy, is a hurricane. If I thought switching him to decaf would help, I would. He's been having some health issues, and is a chronic oversharer. They don't know exactly what's wrong with him, and they're running all sorts of tests. His office is right across from mine, and he often comes in to "check in" and tell me all about what's going on. I don't mind because frankly, I often don't listen, and am responding to emails while repeating "hmm" and "wow" at regular intervals. So he tells me they know it isn't TB, because they had him and his wife tested. (!) Then I zoned out, answered some emails, etc. 

Well. Friends, if you're ever in need of a couple of words that will make someone pay attention REAL FAST, I've got the combo for you. CDC watchlist. Doesn't matter what you're doing, you hear someone start talking about a CDC watchlist, and how they might be put on it,(!!!) you are focused. He is not, apparently, currently on the CDC's most wanted, but I'm still planning on putting him in a bubble. And is it rude to just go ahead and spray lysol directly into someone's mouth?

We had a cookout this week, and to do that, we fed all three shifts. One at 3 a.m., one at noon, and the last at 7 p.m. I came in to work at 2 a.m., after working a full day on Tuesday, and stayed straight through. So I was pretty tired by the time the afternoon rolled around. We're having trouble with one of our departments, and the new spout maker they're installing, so one of the VPs is freaking out and suggesting things that on the surface seem helpful, but are actually very impractical and unusable for various safety reasons. Anyway, he emails in a panic, and despite the fact that he name checked me twice in the email, he did not include me on it. I'm in charge of snacks. I was also, in the email, offered an intern to help with snack runs. I talked some big talk about how I could go to the store by myself, and if I couldn't, what was I doing with this job. I mentioned it to the intern's manager, and he said I couldn't have one of his interns. I repeated, several times, that I didn't need an intern.Well. I had to go to Food City anyway, because of the cookout, so I decided to go ahead and get snacks. I asked the managers that have to work over the weekend if there was anything specific they wanted, and two of them gave me the names of energy drinks. By this time, I had been awake for 16 hours, and working on 4 hours of sleep, so I was getting a little fuzzy around the edges. That's how I found myself in the energy drink isle of Food City, talking to myself. Out loud. Trying to figure out which drink was which flavor. It was not my finest moment. Shortly after that, I conscripted the manager, because my buggy was full, and made him help me. But yes. Talking to myself in the Food City. Not my finest moment.

I get to do the overnight thing again tonight through tomorrow, but I'm going home to sleep in between this time. We don't need a repeat. And let's all be thankful that none of the VPs are currently here, because when I'm tired enough to talk to myself  without really noticing that I am speaking out loud,  my filter is pretty much gone.

It never ends

So I posted on AAM's Friday open thread a preview for this week – a fire, sexual harassment, possible unwanted job changes, four different visits from vendors, and not one, not two, but three actual, literal temper tantrums.

It is now Wednesday. I cannot remember what last week caught on fire. That's bad, isn't it?

In my defense, it is currently a little before 7 a.m., and I have been at work since 2 a.m. We're having a cookout, and because I'm trying to be good at my job, I was here for the 3rd shift feed. I'm going to take just a moment to rant, and say that of the four of us that came in to work this morning, I was the only one at work after 4 p.m. yesterday, and I will be the only one working tomorrow. Ugh.

Up next, we have sexual harassment. As I've mentioned before, we have maybe a dozen women here, including myself and other salaried staff. We also have a zero tolerance policy for harassment of any kind. That didn't stop one guy. Two different girls got to work overtime, because they had the required skills for the job. He does not. One of the girls brushed it under the rug, and refused to confirm or deny anything, which means it turns into a he said/she said. Which is super unfortunate and annoying, because what he said amounted to what were the girls in question doing to who to get overtime. Now personally, I probably would have punched him. And the girl who did come forward almost did. She was angry, and rightfully so. Best we can do is keep an eye on the situation.

As for the unwanted job changes - I overheard our controller talking to my boss one day, and saying that they might make me do some of the file clerking stuff, like handling the invoices. I do not want to do that. I don't like doing that kind of work, and I have more than enough of my own to keep me busy. In addition, I took a pay cut recently (allegedly temporary) and don't want to add more work on when they didn't take any away.

And of course, the temper tantrums. One was from Marvin, who was upset about an untrue rumor that was spreading around the plant. One of the managers, Nori, brought it to his attention, and Marvin politely asked me to leave his office. That means it's going to be bad, and he's going to say some things he doesn't want me to hear. I kind of wish I had a photo of the Nori's face. It was like "I regret ever even opening my mouth." I got the door closed behind me and about two feet down the hallway when I heard the cuss words start flying. I happily went back to my office, where it was much calmer. Not by a lot, but some. At this point I'll take what I can get.

The other two temper tantrums were from the same guy. He's upset that we no longer have a pension program, and likes to gripe about it frequently. He also doesn't super understand how 401ks work, but he has a loan. (Don't ever get one. Trust me.) We had some bumps, and the company that hosts our 401k program, X, is telling him that he owes money. He tells me how much they say he owes. Then says nothing else. It's like, dude. I have literally nothing to do with that, and we are not going to pay money that you owe to a creditor. I can check and make sure that your payments are going from us to them, but that is all I can do for you. So we'll see. With him, somehow it will end up being my fault.

The sun is finally starting to come up, and people are arriving, which means it's way less likely that I'm going to fall asleep at my desk. Not absolutely, but it's better.

Thanks, but no

Had a guy come in for an interview. He was very animated, and a little long-winded. Fine, whatever. He’s probably nervous. Super qualified, and the interview goes well. I gave him my card, and Marvin’s. He emails that night to thank us, which was nice. Not so nice, he attaches his resume again, and the thank you is the first paragraph. The next 10 paragraphs of 500 or so words is him restating everything that we talked about, and everything on his resume. It included not one, but two (!) bullet point lists. He’s eager. A little much, but he’s really qualified, so we will look past it. My boss emails back, because that is the polite thing to do, and tells him he will hear back from us in the next week or so. That was Thursday. 

Tuesday, he emails again, and it is what amounts to a manifesto. A short excerpt – “Too be honest....shortly after our meeting, I was elated and have felt since then, the urgency to research all my notes about numerous solutions and future opportunities which I would like the chance to put in practice with You to enable us to become a valuable asset to this company from this moment forward... [the ellipses are his, and he had a super long paragraph break here] Since our initial meeting, I have continuously felt drawn to the idea of being part of your outstanding culture diversity and core values that you share @ the [company name].”

I realized what bothers me about it, and it’s that the entire thing reads like a scam letter. Act now, or you will lose out on the 27 million dollars being held in a trust! It did, however, only include one bullet point list. Despite the fact that this dude is very qualified, there are more red flags here than a bull fighting contest. There’s such a thing as too much, and he is it. If you hadn’t heard anything, I could see reaching out after a week was up, just to check in. But he had, and if he’s this high maintenance and over the top in the interview process, I don’t really want to know what he’s like to work with.

The flying monkeys doth descend

We're having a big meeting at work this week, and in preparation, several VPs arrived Monday. We're expecting about 30 people, in meetings all week. That's in addition to everything else we have going on. I've been up just before 5 the last two mornings, both because there are both VPs and VIPs there, and to supervise a training. I only had to sit through the whole thing once, thankfully, because it's two hours long.

I'm giving a training on the new payroll system to the supervisors sometime later this week. I did one last week, but a lot of people were out on vacation. It was interesting. Several of our supervisors are... seasoned, and honestly, set in their ways. They do not like the new payroll system, and take every possible opportunity to tell me so. It's like, I get that you don't like it. But this is what we are using now. I did not pick it. Time to move on.

I had one supervisor in particular, who is especially resistant to change, and computers, who was mad that some of the programming was off. Some of the other supervisors had slightly more functionality than him. It's an easy fix, if I can ever find the time to get to it. But he's mad because he has the most seniority among his department as far as supervisors go, and his functionality is different. I'm sorry, what does that have to do with anything? At all?

My boss Marvin, as I may have mentioned before, is a fairly short man. He's used to it (obviously) and has a fairly good sense of humor about it. One of the mechanics saw him walking down the hallway. He then passed on a message through Bombur, that was that Marvin walking through the hall this morning, or was someone crawling? I was glad I didn't have my drink handy, because it would have been spewed all over my desk.

Friday, woo!

It is Friday, and I am glad.

This week has been a long one, y'all. Not just because it's the first full week I've worked in three weeks, but we had a lot of stuff going on.

We've had some issues with the new payroll system. It could have been much worse, and honestly, I thought for sure it would be. That hasn't been fun, and I'm having so much more trouble getting things fixed than I should. It's a too many cooks situation. 

Yesterday was super not fun. I am pretty sure that now that our friend Hellmouth is no longer in the Hellmouth, the energy has dissipated to other places. One of them is here. I had to fix some payroll issues, deal with a cranky boss, feed what was supposed to be 50 but turned out to be 65 people, take some unexpected conference calls, and go get a... toothpaste from my doctor, because people don't give their hobgoblins toothpaste, and they spread lollipops. And I don't want to die from a preventable... cavity. And if you think I'm talking about something else, I'm sure you're mistaken.

Our local Italian place also lied to me. They say their trays can feed 18 to 20 people. Really, it's like 15 maybe if those people are full grown and hungry men. So I'm pretty sure we ran out of food. I'm not sure, because I had to leave to go get on a conference call that I was told started at 12:30. I dialed in, and greeted the other participants, who were surprised I was there. Our call started at 1:00. I hung up and did not mention it when it was our turn. 

I'm very glad to have the weekend off. I've been super tired lately, the kind where you could cry at the smallest upset. Yesterday was so bad I pulled up the Georgia Aquarium webcam and did some deep breathing. I think I need some time off. 

I have some exciting things coming up in the next couple of months, and I'm excited to talk about it. I'm not yet, because nothing is definite until it is, but it's looking really good. Really expensive also, but good. 

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend, full of rest.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who recommended dress pants with actual pockets in the open thread a couple of weeks ago. I got some from Banana Republic, and I could fit my whole hand just past my wrist in there!

In need of naps

Ugh. So I came to work on Monday after four hours of sleep. Monday night I clocked about 8. I came into work this morning at 2:15. We're having a cookout, and needed to feed the night shift. I went home early yesterday afternoon and got about six hours, but I'm not looking forward to the next ten hours.

I think I'll be fine till about lunch time, but after that, all bets are off. We have another feeding at lunch, and then again a little after 6 this evening. Then I'm home free. To sleep for the next couple of days. Ha! That's wishful thinking, but I'm going to remain in my sleepy delusions a little while longer.

We rolled out our new payroll system this week, and no one here has particularly high hopes for it. I did about six hours of reconciliation yesterday between what the new system wants to pay and what the old one would have. It's not pretty. There's a lot of stuff to be worked over. And since it's with people's pay, there's not a lot of them who are particularly understanding when it comes to timelines to fix stuff. Which I get, but some people get downright nasty about it.

I think I'm going to break and make myself some coffee. Then pull a loony toons and prop my eyelids open with toothpicks. I'll let y'all know how that turns out.

I think I'm awake

My flight back from vacation landed at about midnight last night. It was another two hours home after that. Then getting everything inside, shower the plane off, and bed. So about 3 a.m. Then up to get ready for work at 6 a.m. I am not bright eyed and bushy tailed by any means on a good day, but today... whew.

And to top it all off, today's the day we go live with our new payroll system. For real, no backsies. I know it isn't going to be right, the question is how wro g it's going to be. There's going to be some mad people when paystubs hit Thursday. I'll head off what I can when I get the register tomorrow, but it's a short week with the holiday, so people's hours are a little off.

And oh, happy thought. We won't be here Thursday. Or Friday. So that means next Monday will be double not fun, but hey. Don't borrow trouble and all that.