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."

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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.

Take down the Walls...All of Them.

April 2009

"Take down this wall here." My boss is pointing at a structural wall. A weight wall that bears the weight of the floor above."
Me- "I am not sure we can do that. It's a weight bearing wall."
Boss- "Well if we can't lets remove the walls from these desks here and here." He points at the cubicles nearby.
Me- "Why?"
Boss- "I don't like that I can't see them when I walk by to say good morning after my jog."
 Me- "Ok but those desks are supported by the cubicle walls. We would need to change out the desks."
Boss- "Ok."
Me- "Ok as in don't do it? Or ok as in do it?"
Boss- "Let's do it. What do you think."
Me- "I think...you can just walk down the other side of the cubicles," I point to the other aisle that splits the cubes only 8 feet away, "down the main aisle and say hello."
Boss looks at the aisle. Looks at the cubicles...then back to the aisle. "Ya that's probably cheaper."
Me- "Ya...and we will still have 4 floors above our heads."

Comments Overheard in the Last Week

Here are just a couple from the last week-

"I have told you many times you can't go to the public restroom in our offices in your bare feet."

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Employee 1-"I haven't washed my hair in over 3 months. I just put some baby powder in it. Can you tell?"

Employee 2-"Uhm...ya sort of."

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Employee 1-"Printer isn't printing."

Silence from entire office.

Employee 1-"The PRINTER is not PRINTING."

Silence.

Employee 1-"The PRINTER IS no-"

"Read the fucking note on the side of it!" Employee 2 shouts.

Note states. "Printer isn't printing. No Paper."

---

Boss-"I need you guys to make sure to clean up the work areas after your done eating."

Employee 1 and 2-"Oh ok. But we haven't eaten anything in that area for a couple days."

Boss-"Oh because its taco bell and that's what your eating at your desk right now."

---

"I thought we had a meeting today?" Employee 1 asks.

"No that's why we sent out a reminder email to everyone." Employee 2 says.

"Oh I don't read those." Employee 1 explains.

"How did you know about the meeting in the first place then." Employee 2 asks.

Silence.

Skirting a Clam Chowder Disaster

I come into the office after grabbing some food for my lunchbreak. I open up a cupboard to grab a plate.
A clam chowder can half full is sitting in the cupboard. I stare at it...in amazement. A coworker sees me and says, "Oh that is so and so's and they were going to come back and get it."
Me - "When was that?"
Coworker - "About an hour ago."

Now the smell is already leaking out of the cabinet and I notice that spillage from someone pouring some of the chowder out has leaked down the side onto the cupboard so I toss and go to find the employee.
They are at their desk eating chips.
Me - "Was that your can of clam chowder?"
Employee - "Oh ya. I will eat it on my break."
Me - "That's 2 hours from now. It was sitting in the cupboard."
Employee - "Ya I didn't want to have it get smells from the other foods in the fridge. I didn't want it all right at lunchtime."
Me - "Right but its clam chowder. The stuff stinks, and I am not sure but it is probably best not to let it just sit out in a cupboard."
Employee - "Oh ya I see. Go ahead and toss it."
Me - "First you can get off your ass and do it normally. But this time I already threw it away."
Employee, now angry - "You threw it away?"
Me - "Yes. It's fucking clam chowder sitting out for over an hour."
Employee - "I could have still eaten it..."
Me - "Could is the operative word. Cause its thrown away now. Use the fridge from now on."
Employee, who is now hurt at my tone - "I don't see what the big issue is."
Me - "Seafood left out in a warm environment, in a cupboard with clean plates doesn't strike you as odd?"
Employee - "No I do it at home all the time."
Me - "This is not your home."

Special Delivery

I come in to work and I have an IM that states "We turned in some computers yesterday."
I see no new computers. I spend about 20 minutes looking around.
A sudden and horrible thought occurs to me. I go to our little used secondary office door and peek through the glass. Two laptops in their bags resting against the OUTSIDE of the door. In a public hallway. Ripe for theft.

I IM the person back. "Dude they were just sitting there in the hallway."
Employee - "Ya we knocked on the door."
Me - "Did anyone answer."
Employee - "No that's why we left them in the hallway."
Me - "You know we all get off at five right?"
Employee - "Ya. It was like 5:30. We passed one of your people as they biked home."
Me - "Then... why did you knock?"
Employee - "I just... thought someone might have stuck around."
Me - "But you didn't stick around?"
Employee - "No, I had to go."

Jesus. Its like 3200 bucks worth of stuff laying out to be taken.

I am Error

Bahahahaha.
Here is today's

Employee - "My password doesn't work?"
Me - "Which one?"
Employee:"The one to get into the main site."
Me - "What error do you get?"

Empoyee - "Error?"
Me - "Yes does it say wrong password, or no user exists?"
Employee: - "It doesn't say anything."
Me - "Just loads a white screen?"
Employee - "No I get in and then I can't do anything."
Me - "There has to be an error, or a white page. What do you 'get into' as you put it?"
Employee - "The site. Then I can't do anything."
Me - "Then its working. If you can get in."

Employee - "Oh then why can't I do anything."
Me - "Click the 'continue'" button in the center of the screen."
Employee - "Ok. But its not taking me anywhere. It just loads up a screen with links on the left."
Me - "That's the site."
Employee - "So what do I do?"
Me - "Have you read the training manual and viewed the videos I sent you?"
Employee - "Oh. No not yet."
Me - "That's pretty important as they show you what links to hit."
Employee - "I should probably watch them then."
Me - "Ya. Probably."

Case of the Missing Disks

My phone rings. It's another boss from a different group. "Hey do you have a spare minute."
Me - "Sure."
Boss - "How many installs have we had of X software in the last 2 months?"
Me - "We don't run installs. IT does. We do Tech Support for desktop issues."
Boss - "Can you check?"
Me (puzzled) - "I can try to find out."

It takes me hours to decipher the speak I get back from our IT team. They are an amazing bunch but are such nerds as to be called nerds by hardcore nerds.

I call the boss back. "14 installs of software X."
Boss - "Hmm. Ok my information says 3."
Me - "Where did you find that?"
Boss - "I counted the missing disks."
Me - "We don't install by disk. We install by installing the software from the server."
Boss - "Why?"
Me - "We can install remotely, check installs and keep track of serials to make sure we don't misuse the amount of copies we have."
Boss - "That makes sense. Why are the disks missing?"
Me - "IT has those. I do not know. Have you asked them?"
Boss - "No not yet."
That boss... is the boss for IT ladies and gentlemen. Communication in my office is at an all time high.