You're doing that episode a disservice there. It's more complex than that, and I don't think it's ever suggested that they get rid of all the black employees. The joke underpinning it is that it's cheaper to hire a minimum wage white guy to follow each black employee around and activate the sensors for them than address the problem with the sensors.
They've stopped repairing the automatic door in the office on this basis as well. For the sake of two disabled members of staff, it's not worth it.
Alright Tory.
Massive flood in the server room at work.
Officially requested to work from home until 22nd July today, as that’s the start of the summer holidays. I don’t see why it won’t be approved.
Then even beyond then I reckon I’ll wfh on Tuesdays and Thursdays anyways, just because.
Also had to jump start my car again last night. Make sure you’re taking yours out for a regular spin (every 5 days is my minimum aim) if yours is just sitting there.
I'm a twit
So I chickened out of that and asked about notice periods in a roundabout way and got my answer (‘no’, basically). Emailed the school I’m applying to and asked if they’d consider my application if I had a later start date and they said yes. Told my Head of Department and Head Teacher today I was going to apply, and coincidentally they announce this afternoon that the position of Second in Department is going to be advertised. I feel a bit conceited saying this but that’s a pretty big coincidence (they know I want to progress but the opportunities haven’t been there at my current school). So going to apply for both and see what happens.
Come on then Giggles. 'Co Laois'. How the hell do you say that?
My biggest German customer yesterday put in an urgent order for 78 of a particular type of dipstick - MUST BE WITH US TOMORROW. Now, we've never sold this dipstick, and can only locate 10 of them in the world (all in India). When I explained this, the woman in Bremen sounded like she was almost in tears of frustrated anger. 'WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR TOMORROW?'
Why would you need 78 of a certain dipstick TOMORROW? I just don't get it. Aren't dipsticks all the same anyway?
It's almost always that their customer has placed the order and nobody can be bothered to manage their expectations. For us it's the drippy wet ones that clearly won't give their customers a proper lead time.
If you ever find a customer who isn't 'drippy wet', please do send them my way. The hand-to-mouth type trading setups are the worst.
I love certain well-rehearsed conversation streams.
'Do you have this item?'
'No.'
'When will you have it?'
'Never.'
'But... our customer has a requirement.'
'Does he?'
'We need it delivered within three weeks for a tender contract.'
'Do you?'
'PLEASE GIVE AN UPDATE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE'
'There is no update. We still don't do it.'
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 18-06-2020 at 09:48 AM.
The furlough dream is over for me. Back to work on the 23rd.
Customers sending WhatsApp messages
Fucking tell me about it. I have a guy in Zaragoza who'll send me a picture of an engine at 10pm on a weeknight and then complain at 9am that I never quoted him. Fuck off mate.
I’ve an out of office on my email and on my voice mail so these cunts are just waiting on a reply now because they don’t know I’m unavailable. If I even message back to just say I’m not in then they’ll latch and torment me for the rest of the day.
Are you using your personal phone for work? If so, you need a work phone pronto and it needs to go off if you're not working. Fuck that shit.
Work pays for my phone and I can use it as a personal one so it’s the only one I use and I don’t have to answer it out of hours or anything like that. It’s just really unprofessional to send a WhatsApp, he’ll lose hours before he realises I’m not working today or tomorrow.
Block them on whatsapp.
Not a bad should but wouldn’t they still think they’ve sent it?
Even if he's the only one doing it type out a text that looks like you're sending it to a bunch of folk saying you'll no longer be responding the Whatsapp messages, they should direct any messages / requests / whatever to whichever form of contact you prefer.
I'm not sure.
Edit: Ian's idea is good.
https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/sec...ked-by-someone
Any messages sent to a contact who has blocked you will always show one check mark (message sent), and never show a second check mark (message delivered).
Good to know. I have the blue ticks turned off completely but that would at least show someone it hasn’t sent. Might go through my list and block all customers on it.
I might put Ian’s one in future out of office outlook replies and eventually they’d all get used to it anyway.
For now I’ve changed my ‘status’ to say I’m off and to call the office number.
So as you can imagine, as someone that organises an Internatioanl conference, COVID wasn't the best news.
It means my life has been hell for 8 weeks trying to get people to understand bad technology that they picked because they ignored anyone who knew anything. It's been 8:30 starts and 1am finishes for most of that time. Although sometimes I found gaps in the endless meetings and WFH meant I could get a nap in every once in a while. The opening is 10 days from now, same as it would be if COVID never happened.
Meanwhile, Trump, current president of the country our conference was in, has implemented an immigration executive order that would have torn up my and 95% of the staffs VISAs, 100% of our scholarship recipients and 50% of our fee-paying delegates.
I think COVID actually saved us from obilivion whereas now it's just possible bankruptcy.
Wild idea: Host it on the board.
Finally. 4th July.
What a pussy that I am actually crying with happiness.
Cunt rang me twice again this morning (despite me having an out of office phone message) and only rang the office this afternoon according to the Teams group. Imbecile has lost a whole day there
We've been told today that most of us won't be returning to the office until early September at the earliest and by the sounds of it, it might not happen this year. Excellent.
Our lot have put in place procedures to make it really hard to pop back into the office.
First day back yesterday. No laptop, no emails, no phone calls. Grand.
Our office is pretty much back at full capacity. Owner knows the value of TEAM WORK so lol @ those sticking with WFH.
I am getting buttfucked by workload at the moment to the point that I've half given up. I went in to the MD's office to ask when the others are coming back because this is not sustainable. I found him having changed into his golf gear and about to set off for the course having booked a short notice half day. He said 'It's all a bit up in the air at the moment' and headed for the first tee. Great.
Another secondment opportunity has come up; this time as a data analyst for the local test and trace thingy.
Doing actual helpful work that would look good on my CV vs carry on doing the bare minimum and getting paid to sunbathe
Ehhh I’ll skip this one.
I'm a twit
The Koreans wouldn't have left you in the lurch like this, Jim.
No, they wouldn't, bless their little hearts. They also would still have me on 1% annual rises negotiated by the no doubt tigerish trade union over there, so it's swings and roundabouts. And at least here you can talk to colleagues during the working day without it being the most awkward thing ever.
How long have you been there? If it's > 1 yr then just find something else and leave
I was in the same position this time last week, I absolutely gave up and just let it all pile up. Sure enough once my boss realised I was ignoring the emails he was sending me and customers started bitching at him we had a little sit down where I refused to do the work of three people anymore and a temp (his daughter) started yesterday to cover most of the menial stuff.
I'm kind of doing that now. Inbox is up to 51 at time of writing (normally try to end each day on <5). There's just no way of controlling it without someone else to answer the phone.
Mine were up at nearly 200 but that is across 5 or 6 inboxes, most of which were for departments I'm not even supposed to be working in.
Jimmy taking the knee.
I have hundreds and thousands of unread emails.
If it’s that important they’ll email again.