How Many People Does it Take?

To figure out you can't install PC software on the mac?
4.
And around 30 minutes of time.

How many times do they have to be asked if that is the case before replying accurately?
10+

Is Facebook and Redbook the same thing?
No:(

Good day today.

Wonder Where He Went?

I got sick last week and decided to leave early so I emailed all the groups and informed them I was taking a early day off.

My boss emails: "Do we have muffins?"
I email back. "I am not sure. I am home right now though. I can check tomorrow."
He emails back: "Ok that's fine. Thanks get better."

A couple hours later another email alert goes off on my cell phone.
Boss askes, "Do we have coffee?"
I email back. "I...do not know. Probably. I didn't check his morning."

2 hours pass: "Do you have your credit card on you?"

I didn't respond. I KNOW he was going to have me go get him coffee at his favorite place.

The Ugly Chair

My boss called me this weekend:
Boss: "Can we find out if we can replace all the chairs at the office?"
Me: "Sure. I can work with my replacement. And see what they want to do?"
Boss: "Can you handle it?"
Me: "Well I can but I don't have purchase ability now, or even codes for purchases."
Boss: "Oh. Why?"
Me: "I don't do that job anymore. I just do my current one. That's what my replacement is supposed to do."
Boss: "Oh ok...I will call them. Sorry to bother you at home."
Me: "It's fine."

5pm tonight I get home from running.
Voice-message on my home phone: "Hey. I got your card data so you can replace all the chairs at work. I don't like them and I think they are bad. I counted them we need 84. Can you start on that on Tuesday? Thanks. Have a good weekend."

Second message: "Oh also lets keep this sort of hush hush for now. Buy them and replace them on Thanksgiving weekend when people are gone so they can not complain. I don't know if anyone else has an issue with them but me."

I AM NOT EVEN IN THAT DAMN SECTION ANYMORE!
80+ chairs because they don't like the look.
Sigh

Pants are Overrated

Operations story from Jan 2008

One of our conference rooms is incredibly nice. Very decked out with tons of leather items and nice tables and so forth. A full restroom as well where people can come in after working out, biking to work, or so on and change their clothes.

After only one week I notice a strange... darkness on the tan leather couch. It just looks stained. Darker I guess.  I forget about it.
Two weeks later I notice it is worse. Then when I try to get closer to it I realize what... it is. Its an assmark.

So I wait in the morning for people.
I watch who comes in and out and notice one particular person who comes in every morning. I figure I will just ask them not to sit down with wet clothes.
This is what occurred.

Me: "Hey if your using that conference room make sure to always keep your wet clothes off the leather couch if you can."
Employee: "Oh I never sit on the couch with wet clothes."
Me: "Oh ok. I just noticed that it seems wet in the mornings when you bike in."
Employee: "Oh that's not from clothes. I come in 2 hours early and let my clothes dry and watch news."
Me: "Wait... your in them?"
Employee: "No I am hanging them."
Me: "Then... what are you doing?"
Employee: "I just sit down and watch tv."
Me: "With NO CLOTHES ON!?"
Employee: "No, I wear underwear."
Me: "ah..."
Employee: "Usually."
Fuckaarooo

Case of the Missing Workflow Data

Another sections boss called me Wednesday.
Boss: "We can't find the data on workflow for the last two weeks. Can you find it for us?"
Me: "Did you mean to call me? I don't have that data."
Boss: "Ya I heard you worked with us for one day."
Me: "Well. Ya I did one day. But why don't the admins for workflow have that?"
Boss: "Oh I don't know. We just figured if anyone was listening during the meetings it would be you."
Me: "Well... ya but I mean..."  Sigh  "I will look."
I found the data and gave it to them.
Two hours later I get an email from that boss.
"Thank you very much. We needed that today and you came through."

Later that day I get an instant message from my boss.
"Please don't give team 'A' workflow data. It may be wrong."
Me: "They had no data. And asked me to supply it."
Boss: "Why didn't they have it?"
Me: "I am not sure."
Boss: "Oh ok. Do you have ours?"
Me: "Yes, its on the server in the same place."
Boss: "It's on our server?"

For christ sakes these people are in charge...

Things I Overheard Last Week

Worker 1: "The sponges for washing dishes is dirty."
Worker 2: "Wash it out."
Worker 1: "I don't think that will work?"
Worker 2: "Just run water through it and wash it down with soap."
Worker 1: "What about my desk?"
Worker 2: "What about it?"
Worker 1: "It stinks now."
Worker 2: "Why?"
Worker 1: "I washed my desk off with the sponge."

---

Boss to employee
Boss: "Did you finish the project yesterday."
Employee: "Yep its done."
Boss: "Where is it?  I looked on the documents program and all I find is a table of contents."
Employee: "I thought that's what you wanted."
Boss: "No... I wouldn't have given you 3 days to do just a table of contents."
Employee: "Ya, it took me two days to do the table. I will need more if you want me to write the documents."
Boss: "Uhm... its only 12 different pages."
Employee: "It took me almost 4 hours just to pick a font."

I heard the boss as they just turned and walked away.

---

Worker 1: "How many drawers does your 3 drawer file have?"
Worker 2: "..."
Worker 1: "Did you hear me?"
Worker 2: "Yah..."

Bavarian Beefstick

I got a call to help with Building Maintenance duties today to put up blinds in one of our rooms.
I was puzzled by why it was such an emergency that we had to get temp blinds for the room until we could get real ones in the next couple days.

It appears that every Saturday one of our employees comes in, in the afternoon, to work extra hours and after biking in they change on the 4th floor conference room.
On the fourth floor with the lights on...
And they wear biker shorts under their sweats... and nothing else.

When I asked them if they understood that there had not been blinds they said that all they could see was their reflection in the window.
I spent 20 minutes explaining how, their reflection was visible due to the light reflection on the window and that they were showing their manhood to the entire street every night.

I also found out that 3-4 complaints had been lodged about it and they didn't know which company had done it.

Installer Woes

Sigh.
This happened Friday before I went home.

My coworker called and said, "I have been trying to install software X for a couple hours but it just keeps saying, that it doesn't recognize it. Can you help?"
Me - "Sure. What is the exact error?"
Employee - "I don't know, I don't have it up but when I clicked the .exe it keeps giving this unrecognized error."
Me - "Your on a MAC. It should be a .dmg or other kind of file."
Employee - "No it shouldn't! I made sure to use Internet Explorer to download it..."
Me - "The... web browser doesn't matter. Your using Internet Explorer as the browser. Your using the MAC version."
Employee gets pissy - "No I just said I used Internet Explorer to download it."
Me - "I know! But that is the BROWSER. You want the file your are downloading to be the one in the mac format. Go back to the site you downloaded the file from and see if they have a MAC version."
Employee - "That is not true!"  They slam down the phone.
I shrug and move on.

20 minutes later I get an IM from another employee. "Hey... does Bejeweled work on MAC's?"
I IM them back. "Why?"
"Cause so and so is trying to install it to the MAC but it isn't working."

Christ. It wasn't even a damn work program!

Theft Deterrent

Today I was coming into work and a coworker walked in beside me. He started telling me about how people kept stealing his bike but that he had been taking preparations to keep this one from being stolen.

Cut to 5pm tonight. I am walking out with the shift and I wave to the coworker as he turns his bike around and leaps on and pumps his legs a single time to get to the curb.

BOOM! He comes off the curb and the front wheel of his bike crumples like a god damn tin can, he goes flying, his bags go flying and what he had in his bag also went flying.
It was a bicycle pump.

Yep! He let the air out of his tires thinking that would stop thieves. And maybe it did. But he didn't remember to pump them up leapt on that fucker and got 2 feet and that front wheel came off the curb and shredded.

He had obviously thought about it as he had his backpack upzipped but that's as far as he got.