Back in town.

Hmmm. Haven't been here for a while. It has been frantically busy here at work for so long, I'd almost forgotten about it, to be honest. But now the most influential (and incompetent) manager I have ever had has moved on (in the midst of realising that he was just plain not good enough at the job, which makes up for all the stress he heaped on me.), and things are settling down.

In fact, I've actually been able to do my proper job for several months in a row. Which is great! The only downside of my new manager is that she doesn't like databases and doesn't want me to be keeping mine up to date any longer than is absolutely necessary. And she won't listen to me when I tell her that my way is far more efficient than her way. Sigh. Maybe the next one will be more reasonable about it.

Anyway.

I'd just spent several days trialling Google Chrome as a browser instead of Firefox, and I'm afraid that I have had to ditch them. Why? Because when I was password protecting some documents, I was opening them in Chrome to double check that everything was alright - and the password appeared without being masked as I entered it. That's a nono, so I'm back to Firefox again. Good old reliable Firefox.

The other problem I had with Chrome (and am having with the rest of Google right now as well) is that even when I subscribe to interesting-looking apps, I can't put handy links to those apps on my browser in any other form than a bookmark. To my mind, that makes calling them "apps" more or less an oxymoron. They are just like any other subscription website, no matter how useful they are. Not even Google Bookmarks got any better treatment, and that one actually carries Google's name!

In other news, I have also inherited the Training Coordinators mantle, including dealing with the online training course we are using. Not that I have the password yet, but that will have to wait until my current manager sets me up.

I've also taken a quick peek at the last post I made, and it was a long time ago, wasn't it? We have a new General Manager. Mr Big has moved on. His successor has been referred to by me by a number of names (including Mr Organised, Captain Impatient, and one or two that I am not going to publish anywhere except outside my own head, thank you very much. They are fairly inappropriate, and I wish to keep my job.).

Break out the bubbly!

Anarchist Prime actually brought a folder of controlled documents back to me to file, instead of making me retrieve it from his desk (or his bookshelf!)!!!!!

Hooray!!!!

I'd like to think this is a sign of things to come, but, in terms of Beginner Trending: once is an isolated incident, twice is a coincidence. It isn't a trend until you have three or more occurrences in a row.

The sooner the better!

This winter is going to be hell - at least until the company gets around to putting a door in between Mistress Mouth's office and mine. The lady loves her heat. Unfortunately, I don't. Which means that, until that door is in place, I'm going to be wearing tank tops, whilst everybody else in the place are wearing fur lined jackets!

SNAFU

I just came back from a week off, and immediately wished I was still on holiday. Why? I sat down at my computer yesterday morning, and the network was down. Again. And had been going down on pretty much a daily basis all last week. Which is making everybody sullen and unhappy.

It did it again this morning. Not everybody's computers this time, though - just mine, Mr Big's and Principal Girl's computers were down. Growl.

On top of this, I am trying to audit my document control system. It needs it badly, and Mistress Mouth wanted me to do it urgently. By 3pm today urgently. It's quite a big job, and to get it done on time would involve me being interrupted.

Have I succeeded? Of course not! The network crash was the first attempt to nobble my attempt. I may have managed on time even with this, except that Quality, in the form of getting my document control system properly functional, is once again nowhere near as important as Appearances, namely getting QC tidied up.

I am doing my level best to deactivate my 'give-a-shit' when it comes to this, because for the current crop of managers, Quality is never as important as Appearances. If I keep giving a shit about it, I will have a major stress attack, because all I can do is shout, and it never does any good.

Therefore, SNAFU reigns, and I don't give a shit. Seriously.

Snicker

Mistress Mouth commented to me today that they (as in she and Anarchist Prime) have decided that it's time to crack down on those who are trying to dodge their responsibilities - they mean, of course, the Leprechaun.

It all revolves around document review, of course. The Leprechaun has put quite a lot of effort into not reviewing his documents, and finding excuses for it, and frankly, his stories just don't cut it anymore. He's tried to foist the job off onto somebody else (yes, that's right - the company's resident 'lazy bones' who doesn't do anything important - me, naturally), and failed because not only am I in the wrong department, I'm not even qualified (I have an arts degree, not a science degree. Science isn't necessary for document control, just some sense of organisation) - and if I was would start making snide remarks about individuals who are only pretend managers. Just to provoke another row between us, of course.

It's definately a good thing. The Leprechaun has been making a nuisance of himself ever since he took over the role of Production Manager, and I was starting to wonder how long it was going to be before his cigarette smoking 'friend' Anarchist Prime decided to take steps - or if Anarchist Prime would prove himself a department traitor (thus jeopardising his job) and continue to apparently ignore the whole situation.

Fortunately for the rest of us, Anarchist Prime isn't stupid enough to endanger his job like that. Although it does mean that we shall have to continue to put up with him. Sigh.

Chaos and Confusion in the Workplace

Things are in chaos once more, over one of our newest contract manufacture products. The whole manufacture has been riddled with problems, right from the beginning. Media fills kept failing. Not enough people could be persuaded to take responsibility for writing and checking the batch manufacturing record. Chemicals were being tested at the last minute. When the BMR did get signed off, QC had to hide it to stop it from being stolen by Production before QC were ready to give it up.

And now, finally, it turns out that the formulation section had been changed (by the client, I understand) at the last minute, and the whole BMR has to be rewritten. The whole lot, apparently. Yes folks, you read that right. We are supposed to be preparing to manufacture this today, and we are frantically rewriting the BMR.

For once, it's QA getting the blame for holding up Production, rather than QC. Mistress Mouth looked rather bemused by that, but she hasn't had enough practice at being told she's to blame for holdups to Production to get angry at them for being blamed for other peoples' screwups.

I guess this sort of thing can't be helped from time to time. It's annoying, though. I'm going to have to reissue the BMR the moment it crosses my desk (which, personally speaking, is a minor annoyance rather than a major problem - especially given that I'm sitting here blogging about it rather than getting cross about having my work interrupted.).

You'd think that people would be well organised enough to stop this sort of nonsense from happening at all, wouldn't you? Especially in Medical Manufacturing.

New office, new dynamic

I'm in a different office now. That is, my physical location has shifted. My job is remaining largely the same.

However, my new office is bringing with it a new dynamic. Previously, if somebody came into my office to get something off their chest, there was no chance of them being overheard by anybody. Now, however, it's changed. It is very, very easy to overhear what's being said in my office.

That fact obviously hadn't sunk in this morning, which meant that, for the first time ever, I actually got to hear both sides of a debate. It's something we shall all have to get used to - if anybody needs to offload to me before having a formal chat with the HR people, it shall have to happen offsite now.

For the record, the lady to whom I shall refer as Long Suffering R&D Technical Writer will sort out the packaging section.

The other major development in QA is that Mistress Mouth has finally realised what it means to work in a company as small as this one. Previously, I'd been fielding commands from above to specialise, because it was dreadfully urgent that the task of the day be done quickly. At the moment, there are two of these: batch document review (which had previously been labelled under 'somebody else's business') and archiving (which, to be honest, is what I'd rather be doing right now).

Both projects are long term: the former because nobody else has the time to do it (which slows everything down dramatically because nothing actually gets signed off without me pushing), and the latter because there are more than 20 years' worth of paperwork to archive, and there was no way that was going to happen overnight.

Finally, Mistress Mouth has come to her senses and realised that for the sake of her own sanity (and everybody else's), she simply has to let me perform a less specialised role, thus taking some of the weight off her shoulders.

This has come as a relief to me, because it means she's finally stopped moaning at me (and everybody else too, I suspect) about how things should be done, insisting that they be done that way, and then stressing out and moaning even more when it just plain doesn't happen because we're not that big and we don't have the personnel.

All in all, location change aside, I can finally relax and get on with things.