Conversations From the Professional Front Lines

[Kanastrous]

If'n you have more stories like this, and if'n you want to, put them in the "Conversations From the Professional Front Lines" thread.

It's stickied so the story will be around to enjoy, for longer.

[mr friendly guy]

Behold the awesomeness that is our government pay masters. Before we created a centralised bureacracy to handle pay, each hospital would pay their staff and have their own pay departments. Since its been centralised they mispaid staff, and recently have to pay several millions to doctors because they underpaid them. I guess this is their masterplan to save money, by under paying staff.

Among their gaffles

1) inability to read a roster. Correction, that should be ability to read selected parts of the roster and ignore other parts they don't like.

For example when you are assign to a peripheral hospital, the roster is done by that hospital, rather than the main one who employs you. Pretty straight forward huh. Except when its public holidays.

They never pay you when you work on the public holiday. Their excuse, well we checked with the major hospital and you aren't rostered. Of course you aren't rostered to work at the major hospital, because you are rostered to work at the peripheral hospital. Why the hell are they looking at the wrong roster. The fact that they do pay you for other things like weekend pay proves they actually look at the proper roster.

Its almost like they mix and match roster to arrive at a combination where they can justify paying you less.

2) When we lose track of you (usually when we move between hospitals) make up the hours as we go along. Yes, they actually admitted to me over the phone they just made up the hours by extrapolating the previous week. I should note that even if they did that, the hours still came up short.

Seriously, I was underpaid so much one time because when I moved back to a major hospital I was straight away rostered to work long hours.

One wonders why they don't just ring me or the hospital medical administration to find out where I went to if they cannot find me. But apparently that requires thinking, something these guys cannot seem to do.

3) Refusing to pay over time by reinterpreting the agreement.

We are entitled to a certain number of weeks paid leave. The problem arises with overtime payments. Since paid leave counts the same as hours worked, one would expect it goes into the calculation for over time.

But no, they just made up a new rule which they pulled out of their arses which say overtime only counts for physical hours worked. On the surface this sounds reasonable, except for the fact its not stipulated, however this leads to some problems.

For example, a pay period is 2 weeks. So say for the first pay period, a person works 8-5 for mondays to friday. This ends up as 14 hours overtime for the first 2 weeks (pay period). Now in the second pay period, that person takes 2 weeks leave, and gets paid the 2 weeks with zero over time.

Now take a second scenario, in the first week the person works the same hours (so 7 hours overtime for the week) and in the second week begins his leave. He takes another week leave (so it also cuts into the second pay period) and then comes back to work doing the same hours on the second week of the second pay period (ie week 4). Hasn't this guy done exactly the same hours as the first guy. Absolutely, will he be paid the same. Absolutely not. The trick is, for the first period, because the guy only worked the first week (but took leave on the second), they refuse to count overtime.

Now lets take a ridiculous scenario. Overtime is calculated after 76 hours (per 2 weeks). So someone could theoretically work 76 hours (in a 38 hour week) in the first week and take leave in the second week, and be paid ZERO overtime, since he only "physically worked 76 hours". The 38 hour difference will only be paid at normal rates.

This is a bullshit interpretation not stipulated in the contract, but not denied either.

4) refusing to pay over time if someone takes sick leave.

So for example, if someone is rostered to work 14 hours of over time for the pay period, but had to take on day off, they are only paid 5 hours of overtime.

The contract is very clear on this matter. If someone takes sick leave, they are to be paid what they would otherwise earn if they did not take sick leave. It even makes specific reference to overtime. Again our pay masters refuse to do this, blatantly admitting over the phone they aren't following the contract.

Unlike example 3), the contract clearly states you cannot do this, yet they continue to do so.

Fucking tossers and incompetents.

[aerius]

Back when I was in university they messed up the paperwork for my course registrations; according to the schedule they sent me I was registered for Calc II, according to the professor's class list I was registered as well, but when mid-terms came around I found out that according to the faculty, I wasn't registered for the class since I wasn't on the list to take the mid-term exams. They let me take the exam, and that's where the fun started since I still had to sort out the registration issue.

So as soon as the exam's over I head to the faculty registration office and show them my papers, and explain the situation. They tell me they can't do anything since according to their system I'm not registered for Calc II, and the system is right. I ask them to explain why my official registration papers & schedule both say I'm properly registered for Calc II, they claim it's not their department and the other systems must be wrong. This went back & forth and went nowhere, so next I got a hold of my prof and we went to see the assistant Dean of my faculty.

Once again, I explained the situation, backed it up with my documentation, and had my prof provide his as well. He said "ok, there's clearly a mistake, we'll fix it" and booked us an appointment with the Dean of the faculty the next day. So I visit the Dean with my prof and all the documentation and lay out the situation for her, and ask her to get it fixed. She says "ok, I will sort it out with registration and get it fixed", so I ask her how long this will take, because I want this fixed NOW. She says it should be done in a couple days. Good enough, so I thank her and go on my way, and thank my prof for taking his time to back me up.

So a couple days go by and I'm back at registration to follow up and make sure they got my shit fixed. Surprise surprise, they didn't. So I book another appointment with the Dean, and the next day I'm in her office again, but just before I went I checked with registration again to see if they fixed my shit, they didn't. The Dean didn't look happy to see me, and I wasn't happy either. I was like "my Calc II registration still hasn't been sorted out, I want it done" I think I gave the impression that I was deadly serious, and that I'd be back to hound her every single fucking day until it got done, because she went down with me to registration and made them fix the fuck-up, and I made them print extra copies for me in case they found another way to fuck things up. So now that everything's good, I thanked my Dean for her time & help to keep relations decent in case I needed her help in the future.

Not surprisingly, they fucked up my registration again the next year.

[Simplicius]

Merged with Front Lines for neatness' sake.

[The Grim Squeaker]

The single most embarassing, incompetent unprofessional incident that happened to me in my military service by far, my moment of shame:

There was a very important diplomatic agreement/meeting/signing involving the head of the base and the head of a foreign military branch (nothing confidential, I just dislike giving names).
I was specially requested to bring my own gear (as always) and to document this historic (really historic) signing for future publication, documentation and just their needing someone good to take photos of it and trusting me.

My commander asked me to bring my gear a month in advance.
And reminded me again two weeks in advance.
And he and my officer reminded me a week in advance.
And two days before that.
And called me the night before to make sure I had the gear.
....

I remembered to bring the gear , and it worked perfectly, I charged the batteries, polished the glass, took the right light readings and took excellent photos of everything, capturing everything from the signing to the handshakes . (MAde you look).

See, the embarassing thing was that while leaning against a wall to take a zoomed in shot of the pen signing the document, my ass pressed the cellphone in my pocket (which I had switched off before going into the room) on.
As (our) Major General, the honourable X, Y began one of his well prepared speeches (which I'd proof read and translated into English, right down to tracking down the bible verses to make sure they were accurate) - my phone began to ring, in the small closed room, 4 meters away from him and the heads of the delegation.
Oh, and it was playing the Imperial March. Loudly. In the middle of the historic diplomatic speech.
I slapped for that cellphone and dug it out and closed the call (and the device) FAST (as in, whirlwind of motion and pants slapping), and it didn't bother him in the speech, and nobody said anything (my officers were there) afterwards, and nothing happened really.
But still, it's embarrassing!

[AMT]

The single most embarassing, incompetent unprofessional incident that happened to me in my military service by far, my moment of shame:

There was a very important diplomatic agreement/meeting/signing involving the head of the base and the head of a foreign military branch (nothing confidential, I just dislike giving names).
I was specially requested to bring my own gear (as always) and to document this historic (really historic) signing for future publication, documentation and just their needing someone good to take photos of it and trusting me.

My commander asked me to bring my gear a month in advance.
And reminded me again two weeks in advance.
And he and my officer reminded me a week in advance.
And two days before that.
And called me the night before to make sure I had the gear.
....

I remembered to bring the gear , and it worked perfectly, I charged the batteries, polished the glass, took the right light readings and took excellent photos of everything, capturing everything from the signing to the handshakes . (MAde you look).

See, the embarassing thing was that while leaning against a wall to take a zoomed in shot of the pen signing the document, my ass pressed the cellphone in my pocket (which I had switched off before going into the room) on.
As (our) Major General, the honourable X, Y began one of his well prepared speeches (which I'd proof read and translated into English, right down to tracking down the bible verses to make sure they were accurate) - my phone began to ring, in the small closed room, 4 meters away from him and the heads of the delegation.
Oh, and it was playing the Imperial March. Loudly. In the middle of the historic diplomatic speech.
I slapped for that cellphone and dug it out and closed the call (and the device) FAST (as in, whirlwind of motion and pants slapping), and it didn't bother him in the speech, and nobody said anything (my officers were there) afterwards, and nothing happened really.
But still, it's embarrassing!

...Ass-dialing during a historic diplomatic accord.
Awesome

[tim31]

Behold the awesomeness that is our government pay masters.

Check this shit out:

NSW Greater Western Health District

My dad stopped doing locums out there where they wouldn't pony up. Come to that, he gave up on locums altogether and got a staff job.

[mr friendly guy]

Behold the awesomeness that is our government pay masters.

Check this shit out:

NSW Greater Western Health District

My dad stopped doing locums out there where they wouldn't pony up. Come to that, he gave up on locums altogether and got a staff job.

Well before we hired some awesome guy (Neale Fong) who was a doctor and had some experience running a private hospital, and also sat on the board of several companies and the WA football commission. He was our most highly paid public servant.

Problem was he ended up doing shit, and he was doing several other jobs instead of dedicating himself to what the government was paying him. Correction, what he did was shit, wasting government money to hire "experts" some from overseas where the tax payers footed the bill to fly them in to Perth.

To top it off, his contract allowed him to select his own pay increases.

Granted it was limited such that he could not select more than the maximum percentage granted other public servants, but it was ridiculous that this was in his contract in the first place. Moreover, the minimum payrise a public servant gets is more than the minimum an average doctor gets as a percentage of pay.

He was eventually forced to resign, not from incompetence, but because he had dealings with the EVIIIL Brian Burke, ex premier whose name is synonymous with corruption. The same Brian Burke the Liberals tried smearing Kevin Rudd's name with, only to find out their own skeletons in the closet ie Liberal members who also dealt with the infamous power broker.

I wish someone would pay me $130,000 as well, to "fix" the health system. At least once I get briefed I won't do as bad simply because I am not going to hire "experts" to give me bullshit advice, hence saving the tax payers' money.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The President of the company I used to work for had a very interesting contract. In it, it was stipulated that if he was ever laid off or fired, for ANY reason, he would be obliged to receive pay out to the end of his contracted employment period. This period was ten years, which isn't insane, but he'd had a clause added so that this period was re-started EVERY DAY. That's right, no matter when he lost his job, he'd have TEN YEARS of severence pay.

When the company was bought by a new firm, they took one look at his contract and laughed him all the way to the legal department, where it was changed to 6 months.

[Temjin]

I don't know whether this counts for the thread, but I don't care. It's too hilarious not to share.

Background: I work security for something like a homeless shelter. People can rent rooms for cheap, and be provided with breakfast lunch and supper. The place is also staffed with care worker's (hereby called RCW's). Now, the first floor is the entrance and main desk. The second floor is administration. The fourth and seventh floor is women only and even I'm not allowed on them unless asked to accompany a RCW. All the rest are men's floors. No man is allowed on the women's floors, and vice versa. My office is on the third floor.

So I was sitting in my office when a RCW came to my door and asked for my help. She had found a naked man in the fourth floor television room. She had told him to get dressed and go downstairs to the main desk. He didn't make it to the front desk and was instead still in the stairwell.

Ooookay.

So I open the third floor stairwell door, and there he was. Completely naked except for a shirt he was using to hide his genitals. And no, he wasn't wearing the shirt.

As soon as he sees me, he says "I'm fucked up man! I don't know where I am!" At this point, I'm a deer in the headlights. I don't know how to handle this. So I say the most useless thing ever (In my defense, at the time I thought he was a resident):

"You're on the third floor."

"I know that!"

At this point, I repeat the RCW's request for him to get dressed and go downstairs. All of a sudden, he starts bolting down the stairs while putting his shirt on. Oh, and distinguishing feature: Not that much pubic hair. I had to see it, you have to read it.

After the RCW and I exchange a look, we follow him down. When we get down there, the guy is nowhere to be seen. But the RCW was gesturing frantically to the front door. She had just seen a man in nothing but a shirt come out of nowhere and immediately bolt out the door to the outside and head towards the street outside, one of the busiest in Winnipeg. No socks or shoes. And it's winter.

We're all wondering what the fuck is going on at this point. I poke my head out the door to see if I can see him while one of the RCW's is phoning the police to let them know so they can find him and pick him up before he freezes. I came back into the main desk just in time to hear this:

"Yes, a naked man. He ran towards (street). He has nothing but a shirt on. He should be very noticeable."

That last sentence had us all laughing.

Anyway the police show up an hour later saying no one was able to find him. They figure he must have found somewhere to stay since they were receiving no calls of a near naked man roaming the streets.

We also managed to find his missing clothes in a woman's room. She said she didn't remember a thing.

Just another day in the life of a security guard...

[Zed Snardbody]

A couple days ago I was on the checkpoint and a passenger overheard me using a line from Dave Atell:

"The Canadians, or as I call them the snow Mexicans"

"....Thats offensive, I can't believe you said that"

"What? The snow part or comparing Canadians to Mexicans?"

"um..."

I swear I could almost see the smoke start to come out their ears.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Boss: Colin why haven't you cleaned the Kettle yet?
Me: you see the steam from the boiling water comming off of it?
Boss: never mind

Boss: Colin you're going to need to spread some towels out for the elements and get a strainer and a large holding pot.
Me: right here *towel's laid out 2x2 and 2 1/2 gal soup pot, & a strainer right on the counter next to me.*

me with a very sharp wicked looking box cutting blade
Me: sorry, I steaming, they fucking fucked me again, and are too fucking lazy to break down thier own boxes, and put these cardboard bins in proper order.
Boss: I was just going to tell you we needed the cardboard changed but you seem to be taking care of it, I'm going into my office to have a word with the Housekeeping manager about her staff not taking care of the cardboard.

[D.Turtle]

I currently work on a scrapyard mainly dealing with stainless steal.

When I started, something akin to the following took place:

Coworker: And NEVER handle any scrap without wearing gloves.
Me: Thats obvious, I don't want to cut myself.
Coworker: No, you might get AIDS.

[Tahlan]

Almost 20 years ago when the 5 1/4 inch floppy was the cutting edge technology of the day, I was doing tech support for a software company.

Me: "Insert the floppy and close the door."

Customer: "OK, I've inserted the floppy... (then silence, and then a noise in the background, then the customer returns) and the door is closed."

Me: (I realize that the customer got up from his seat and closed the door to his office and not the drive bay on the floppy drive...me trying not to laugh) "No, sir. I meant the lever on the floppy drive, turn the lever down..."

[Venator]

Lab TA: "This stuff is called "Sybr-SAFE", but anything that can attach to your DNA and make it fluoresce is not safe".
Me: "Awesome."

Also, you know the bit from The Simpson's where to doctor held Homer's x-ray in such a manner that he missed the crayon in his cranium for twenty years? Someone held a bottle in a similar manner, and messed up a huge number of PCR gels by using agar instead of agarose.

[Jalinth]

When the company was bought by a new firm, they took one look at his contract and laughed him all the way to the legal department, where it was changed to 6 months.

I'm surprised the President didn't say no, I'm not signing it. Giving them the choice of firing him and paying out 10 years. I would (or demand a nice lump sum for signing the new contract)

My own story.

Old firm I was the person who gave the personal tax update (yes, I'm a tax geek who can fire off section references from memory) and also modified the tax software for the custom "letter" they wanted since I'm the only one who ever looked at the software in that depth. Fucking pain in the ass since they wanted a massively modified letter and the letter software wasn't made to handle this level of customization (it couldn't add two numbers together and spell check was useless as it picked up all of the codes) and had an efile and non-efile version that were not integrated. Every year I ran 6 dummy returns to try to pick-up any problems ahead of time and gave them to a partner for review. Said very clearly that any errors found (we had some clients with unique tax situations) just tell me and I'll fix it on the fly as I had access to the master version.

Left a year and a half ago. Found out that last year, letter wasn't fixed until the last week (nominal "tech" partner was in charge ), and this year, no tax update at all as my other experienced cohort left the previous summer and haven't been replaced (not surprised. Money wasn't bad, but wished I left the place 4 years earlier.)

[Kodiak]

From today:

I went out to the Taco Truck that services our manufacturing warehouse for a breakfast burrito this morning and one of our technical writers was showing off her new iphone.

Her: It's really easy to use and has a lot of cool games and apps and stuff
welder: I saw they have games where you turn the phone and it turns the game, like driving a car or steering.
Me: Yeah, they have a lot of cool applications for that technology.
Welder: What gets me though is that they can use SATELLITES just to see which way you're holding your phone.
Me:
Welder: You know, they can see how which way is up in the game?
Me: I think they use a sensor inside the phone for that.
Welder: Like a little metal ball? That's cool.
Me: Yeah... something like that.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Chef: Dammit I wish I could just inject the green into this.
Me: sorry All I have is intermuscular needles, besides their only good for one use anyways.
Chef: We're talking injecting food color into something for saint paddys day, not medical use. I could even use used intermuscular needles.
Me: Febuary was a short month, I'll bring by a bag of ten sterile tomarrow.

(diabeties needles being used for Saint Patrick's Day kitzch)

[Pulp Hero]

Kind of an upbeat story.

A few of us were doing a ruck march this afternoon on a rather hilly road that I have rucked on before.

I had started off at a run, but slacked off around the middle segment which was where the worse slopes were. A douchebag that I work with managed to catch up to me and ask, "Oh man, are you alright?" with a shit eating grin on his face before stepping out to get about a consistent fifty foot lead on me.

I was alright with it though, because I could see that he was doing "chicken wings" (placing hands behind back to help lift/shift the rucksack) and we hadn't even gone a quarter of the march distance.

I got to the half way point on the road and turned around, and then started jogging the rest of the way back to the end. I got a one mile lead on him when I finished. Sucker.

[Kanastrous]

From a sales job I worked back in the 1990s...

Me: Okay, I think you'll be happy with your purchase. May I please have your California ID?
Him: (fidgets) Why do you want my ID?
Me: There's some legal paperwork involved in the sale. Your ID is required to complete it.
Him: (drums fingers) Can I just *show* it to you?
Me: No, I have to take down the identification number.
Him: (distracted) I guess I could just *tell* you...
Me: I have to inspect the ID. That involves touching the ID.
Him: You're right. Anyway, I don't want to say it out loud.
Me: Why is that?
Him: (glances at ceiling) Because *they* might hear me.
Me: Mister, I am not selling you a handgun today.

[Pulp Hero]

Got our new set of dog tags today, my buddy got "JEDI" stamped as his religion.

[Venator]

Got our new set of dog tags today, my buddy got "JEDI" stamped as his religion.

They put your religion on dog tags?

I mean, I suppose there's a use for it, avoiding, "wrong last rites" moments... but aren't there more useful things to put there?

[The Yosemite Bear]

A few years ago:

Guest #1 has a queensland heeler with blue suit and harness and is translating ASL for her hearing impared husband. I say hi there to their assistance puppy in training (the harness actually says Assisstance Trainee on it)

Guest #2 has one of those annoying purse/backpack dogs, ala Paris Hilton. Makes a big deal that it's not fair that those people were allowed to have their dog in the restaurant and not them.

Me: Well that's because it's a working dog, we let Police Dogs, Seeing Eye Dogs (now called assisstance animals), and Trainee animals count as such. (Guest #1 and her husband actually train animals for Police, Hospitals, and Search and Rescue for a living)

Guest #2: Well this is a Jack Bauer Terrier counter Terrorist Dog.

Team Cat should note that the couple has finished Training this winter of their first batch of Bengal Search and Rescue Cats.

[Kanastrous]

They put your religion on dog tags?

Used to be getting "Wiccan" on dog tags was big news. I guess now you can get whatever you like stamped there.

[Coyote]

Supervisor: Here's a new hand cart. We need to store it in the Records room.
Myself: Just leave it right here where we can get it easily.
Sup.: It needs to be put in the back, behind the file cabinets.
Me:
Sup.: This is the replacement for the last one. The ICE guys borrowed it and never brought it back. So we need to hide this one or they'll take it. (ICE = Immigrations & Customs Enforcement)
Me: Am I the only one that finds it ironic that most of the office-supply theft in this building is done by the Law Enforcement guys?


------------------------

They put your religion on dog tags?

Used to be getting "Wiccan" on dog tags was big news. I guess now you can get whatever you like stamped there.

I have a set somewhere that has "Thyssan" stamped on them.

"Thyssan" religion is the dominant beliefe I made up for my own personal science-fiction universe. Heehee.