MORE Conversations From the Professional Front Lines

[LaCroix]

CoWorker: Hmm.. Porsche claims the Panamera Hybrid is the fastest hybrid sedan on the market.
Me: That's kind of cheating. It's not a sedan.
CoWorker: They say it is. Look at the shape, and it got 4 seats and 4 doors.
Me: So have most Maserati. It's still a sportscar, just one with 4 true seats and 4 doors. It's not some car a bloke buys because he wants to get somewhere faster with his wife and two kids. It's a Porsche you buy because it allows you to take 3 girls home with you after the party instead of just one.
*General noises of approval across he office*

[Raw Shark]

BUDDY MANAGER: I need you to come up to the office.

YOUR DRIVER: Does that have to happen right now?

BUDDY MANAGER: Yeah.

YOUR DRIVER: I can't do that right now.

BUDDY MANAGER: Why not?

YOUR DRIVER: Broken toe and whiskey.

BUDDY MANAGER: ...okay. Tomorrow morning.

YOUR DRIVER: Done.

BUDDY MANAGER: Done.

YOUR DRIVER: And done. Hey, we still on for Thursday?

BUDDY MANAGER: You know it.

YOUR DRIVER: Right on.

[Zaune]

Well, if you could use that as an excuse you know you're not in trouble, eh?

[Raw Shark]

Well, if you could use that as an excuse you know you're not in trouble, eh?

I'm not. Buddy Manager and I get along well. We've hung out (ie: drank) aside from work, and he's a fun guy. He calls me on my personal number. He's got a charmed life: he does nothing except make this kind of phone call and similar things, he can bring his dog to work, and he's banging the only hot girl in the entire building. Guy has it made.

Unfortunately his older brother is the real boss, and is... shall we say a real piece of work.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Sounds like a continuation of the charmed life. Asshole older brother that everyone hates, lets him make all the unpopular "boss" decisions and take all the heat.

Btw, "Broken Toe and Whiskey" needs to be the title of a country song, stat!

[Venator]

Is the thing he needed you in the office for a sexual harassment complaint from the lesbian newbie in the other thread?

[Napoleon the Clown]

Sounds like a continuation of the charmed life. Asshole older brother that everyone hates, lets him make all the unpopular "boss" decisions and take all the heat.

Btw, "Broken Toe and Whiskey" needs to be the title of a country song, stat!

Drop the e and make it a Flogging Molly (or other Irish punk band) song.

[Raw Shark]

Is the thing he needed you in the office for a sexual harassment complaint from the lesbian newbie in the other thread?

No, she was totally chill. Buddy Manager called me because I had to scrap my cab, because PUC regulations said it was too old. Totally arbitrary bullshit that took four fucking hours. That cab ran great. One of the better ones I've ever had.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

And, that's why they had to scrap it.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Is the thing he needed you in the office for a sexual harassment complaint from the lesbian newbie in the other thread?

No, she was totally chill. Buddy Manager called me because I had to scrap my cab, because PUC regulations said it was too old. Totally arbitrary bullshit that took four fucking hours. That cab ran great. One of the better ones I've ever had.

Shoulda seen about buying it and... No, I won't actually joke about driving for Uber or Lyft, I know how much you hate those companies.

Still, you should have bought it so you could keep it from being torn apart.

[Raw Shark]

Still, you should have bought it so you could keep it from being torn apart.

That was not an option. They save a lot of money by looting parts from good cars.

[Raw Shark]

BUDDY MANAGER: You might need to drain that.

YOUR DRIVER: Think so? [flips out knife]

BUDDY MANAGER: Wait, wait, I don't think-

YOUR DRIVER: You don't think what?

BUDDY MANAGER: I don't think you should stab yourself.

YOUR DRIVER: I'll do it outside.

BUDDY MANAGER: [sigh] I want to go on the record that I think this is dumb.

YOUR DRIVER: Noted. [very sharp knife deployed] Let's see some blood.

[FaxModem1]

What the hell were you doing?

[Napoleon the Clown]

I would guess he's draining some blood from his fucked up toe. Or possibly from underneath the toenail.

[Venator]

Is the thing he needed you in the office for a sexual harassment complaint from the lesbian newbie in the other thread?

No, she was totally chill. Buddy Manager called me because I had to scrap my cab, because PUC regulations said it was too old. Totally arbitrary bullshit that took four fucking hours. That cab ran great. One of the better ones I've ever had.

Shoulda seen about buying it and... No, I won't actually joke about driving for Uber or Lyft, I know how much you hate those companies.

Still, you should have bought it so you could keep it from being torn apart.

Could always use a Crown Vic for other business purposes...

RAW SHARK: THE SEX VIGILANTE OF DENVER

*Roll 70's detective drama credits*

[Raw Shark]

Could always use a Crown Vic for other business purposes...

RAW SHARK: THE SEX VIGILANTE OF DENVER

*Roll 70's detective drama credits*

Oh man, that's what I wish I had my Crown Vic for.

[Raw Shark]

I would guess he's draining some blood from his fucked up toe. Or possibly from underneath the toenail.

Truth. Turns out that Buddy Manager is a little squeamish. That's the difference between a First Class and an Eagle. We shot some stick and I put Ol' Vicky to some good use Thursday.

[TheFeniX]

This is getting ridiculous. I was going to let it go, but they wouldn't.

There was a time at this company I, literally, did all the reporting. I didn't write all the reports, but I wrote a goddamn lot of them. But when it was time for reports to go out, I ran a comb binder so much I about needed to start jerking off with my left arm just to even things out. I'm not complaining, it. was. my.job. and it wasn't exactly hard work and I was/am well paid to do it. I never missed a deadline, others did. I can't mail a report out if someone forgot to fucking write it until the day it was due then dumped it on my desk with multiple errors of the "everything" variety.

And now we have more people writing reports and more people who put them together. So, my work is spread out. So, the coworker who was in charge of getting X, Y, and Z report out today couldn't come in. Fine, whatever. Only the PDFs need to go out today. The PDFs which I should add I started doing of my own volition in 2006 because "it's the fucking 21st century. Do you guys really want hardcopies if you aren't required to get one." No one wanted hardcopies, we do mostly PDFs now and the agencies want/need PDFs AND hardcopies.

This isn't high level stuff. Its groundwater reporting mostly. Some text, tables, figures, and attachments for historical and lab data.

"Hey, FeniX: make sure you accept all the changes and print the tables right to the PDF. Oh and add bookmarks."
"You mean add in the shit I started as a practice at this company?"
"You mean do my job?"

I just said, "ok no problem." because I would have let that go.

"FeniX, make sure to put the agency in the To field, then CC the clients."
"FeniX, see if you can compress the PDFs."
"Make sure you explain what you're sending in the e-mail."

And more and more and more. 6+ conversations about doing what I've been doing for 12 years all that literally translate to: "Do your fucking job." Like, at some point, I'm going to just start dragging my bare ass across the desk then punch my time-card?

"Let me know if you need anything:" I do not need your help, otherwise I would be asking for it.

I've literally made one mistake that wasn't the fault of someone else (read: not giving me the right data, missing information, etc) because this shit is just not hard. The mistake I made was doing air emissions where I fucked up the numbers. They were way off, but the report was approved by multiple people above me. This year, trying to figure out WHY my numbers were so off, I looked at the date of my e-mails and files. I wrote the last report 3 days after my son was born....... I was in no mental condition to write said report and in my e-mail even said "I'm going on like an hour of sleep, please triple check this." The client understood completely and laughed (this was thankfully not an agency report, it was self-reporting for the client). But I was still ready for an ass chewing because fucking up at THIS aspect of my job is actually HARD to do because it's that easy. This is 12 years. One mistake. They tried to blame a big one on me, but we had that one out: if you can't design a table of contents that correctly lists the contents, then you make yourself completely unreachable the day the report needs to go out: you aren't blaming me for putting it together wrong. Especially when, this ONE report you wrote uses a completely different system than every other report we do (it's got tables and figures at odd intervals in the text and a bunch of other nifty (read: worthless) bells and whistles.

Why are 2 different people suddenly on my ass when I have to do their job. "Your" client used to be my client. They were ALL my client because there was no one else to handle them. Just because we've delegated out some responsibility does not mean I'm going to take this kind of shit from a person who, just yesterday, asked me to ONCE AGAIN show her how to center a table horizontally in Excel.

It's 5 clicks. You don't even need a keyboard to do it. I'm bringing this shit up at the next meeting. If I've done something to make people suddenly think I'm a moron, I want to know. Otherwise, don't tell me how to do my job.

[LaCroix]

We do have a (quite) new boss (aka not old guard being her since ever), and he's a very energetic speaker, and Italian.
We also have a service called R.I.M. to do version numbering.
We call it R.I.M., the boss calls it RIM.

The boss keeps saying things like " ...before checking in, you have to do a RIMjob." "We need a RIMjob"

It's getting harder and harder not to laugh at office meetings for all of us, but no one has the heart to tell him.

[aerius]

There's a reason my former employer (Research In Motion) has rebranded itself to BlackBerry.

[Lagmonster]

Overheard by the figurative water cooler:

"My idea: Trudeau vs. Putin. Cage match. Winner gets Alaska."

[Raw Shark]

My idea: Trudeau vs. Putin. Cage match. Winner gets Alaska."

I've got twenty bucks.

[The Romulan Republic]

Overheard by the figurative water cooler:

"My idea: Trudeau vs. Putin. Cage match. Winner gets Alaska."

Heh.

I don't think Trudeau could take an ex-KGB guy one on one, even if he is younger. More's the pity.

[Raw Shark]

This thread keeps getting funnier.

[Lagmonster]

Overheard by the figurative water cooler:
"My idea: Trudeau vs. Putin. Cage match. Winner gets Alaska."

I don't think Trudeau could take an ex-KGB guy one on one, even if he is younger. More's the pity.

I dunno. Trudeau is wicked strong. His youth and amateur boxing experience might just be enough to counter Putin's age disadvantage. Plus it'd clearly be for a good cause.