Thursday, 27 March 2008
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Stress alert.
I think I'm letting the Grand Visier's stress get to me. It's turning into something of a running joke around here - will the Grand Visier or my Jedi Master be the first to have a nervous breakdown? Personally, I think the odds are at around 50/50.
At any rate, we're starting to get the distinct impression that one of our clients doesn't really know what they're doing and, given how highly strung the Grand Visier is, this is causing her a certain amount of stress.
She's very good at passing stress on to other people, even people as relaxed as I am.
The main problem, I suspect, is that she and I have each inherited parts of this situation from Darth Chaos and the Empress of Production, both of whom were highly experienced and capable of not letting other people take any of their own stress on board. I just need to keep breathing steadily and reminding myself that I am cool, calm and collected. I do not need to stress about this. All I need to do is deal with the packaging which, given how little I have to do at the moment (god help me, I've started working on fanfic again. On work time! There's a rather nice little piece of freeware out there called FreeMind, which was developed by a published science fiction author to help him write stories...), is not that difficult to slot in.
At any rate, we're starting to get the distinct impression that one of our clients doesn't really know what they're doing and, given how highly strung the Grand Visier is, this is causing her a certain amount of stress.
She's very good at passing stress on to other people, even people as relaxed as I am.
The main problem, I suspect, is that she and I have each inherited parts of this situation from Darth Chaos and the Empress of Production, both of whom were highly experienced and capable of not letting other people take any of their own stress on board. I just need to keep breathing steadily and reminding myself that I am cool, calm and collected. I do not need to stress about this. All I need to do is deal with the packaging which, given how little I have to do at the moment (god help me, I've started working on fanfic again. On work time! There's a rather nice little piece of freeware out there called FreeMind, which was developed by a published science fiction author to help him write stories...), is not that difficult to slot in.
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
bored, bored, bored...
I never really realised just how many hours of work Darth Chaos added to my workload until now. Now that she's gone (and Anarchist Prime is not dumping work on me the way Darth Chaos did), I'm left twiddling my thumbs. I'm just beginning to contemplate indulging in make-work, as an alternative occupation to hassling QC for documentation that they haven't got time to do, or writing the trending report that I have right now, which is the last piece of work I'm going to have to do that is even remotely meaningful until I have to start covering for QC by way of sampling.
What have I been doing? Surfing the net. Musing about courses that I could be doing. Looking for information about courses I could be doing. Wondering what sort of value they could be adding to my career. Surfing the net. And, of course, surfing the net.
In other words, I am just starting to approach that inevitable point in the document controller's life known as "bored shitless."
If it wasn't for unrestricted internet access, I'd probably be writing fanfic right now. If this goes on much longer, I shall probably start writing fanfic again. Given enough practise, it might even be readable.
What have I been doing? Surfing the net. Musing about courses that I could be doing. Looking for information about courses I could be doing. Wondering what sort of value they could be adding to my career. Surfing the net. And, of course, surfing the net.
In other words, I am just starting to approach that inevitable point in the document controller's life known as "bored shitless."
If it wasn't for unrestricted internet access, I'd probably be writing fanfic right now. If this goes on much longer, I shall probably start writing fanfic again. Given enough practise, it might even be readable.
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
The Unknown Practical Joker
It seems we have a unknown practical joker in the place.
You see, we have an in/out board at reception, so that our poor, long-suffering receptionist actually has a clue as to who is and is not around when people ring for them.
We also have a Business Manager-cum-HR Manager who spends more time out of the office than in. This, as you can imagine, is not a terribly welcome trait in an HR Manager and has led to some mostly unspoken negativity about the lady in question. (She has recently taken on a new person who is being groomed to take over the role of HR Manager, a step which I personally regard as being terribly positive and foresighted of the aforementioned Business/HR Manager. The new assistant is incredibly young, but as she has "human resources" written in large letters across her personality, I think she'll become what she needs to become.)
The Practical Joker went to the aforementioned in/out board, and superglued the magnetic tag for our absentee Business Manager into the "out" position.
/falls about howling with laughter/
The Business Manager is, naturally enough, on the rampage about this. Meaning that I have to keep a straight face at work if the subject comes up.
No, I'm not responsible, although I can think of any number of people in the company who might be.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!
You see, we have an in/out board at reception, so that our poor, long-suffering receptionist actually has a clue as to who is and is not around when people ring for them.
We also have a Business Manager-cum-HR Manager who spends more time out of the office than in. This, as you can imagine, is not a terribly welcome trait in an HR Manager and has led to some mostly unspoken negativity about the lady in question. (She has recently taken on a new person who is being groomed to take over the role of HR Manager, a step which I personally regard as being terribly positive and foresighted of the aforementioned Business/HR Manager. The new assistant is incredibly young, but as she has "human resources" written in large letters across her personality, I think she'll become what she needs to become.)
The Practical Joker went to the aforementioned in/out board, and superglued the magnetic tag for our absentee Business Manager into the "out" position.
/falls about howling with laughter/
The Business Manager is, naturally enough, on the rampage about this. Meaning that I have to keep a straight face at work if the subject comes up.
No, I'm not responsible, although I can think of any number of people in the company who might be.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!
Monday, 3 March 2008
All hail!
Another tag to add to the collection, and for once it is mine, as applied by another member of staff (who is yet to acquire a nickname): "All knowing fountain of knowledge person." /blush/ I'm not. Really I'm not!
Tears in the fabric of work
My previous post mentioned a rift between Quality and Production. I think it is more a rift between the Grand Visier and Quality, since we seem to get on quite well with the other Production staff.
The main problem, as I see it, is that the Grand Visier really needs to grow up. She keeps making a fuss over quality issues that, whilst they may possibly affect Production (which is why she found out about them in the first place), shouldn't do so because Quality is rather more on the ball than that and are quite capable of fixing such problems as they arise without any outside input.
Plus she showed signs of not taking my paperwork seriously. That, of course, is unforgiveable. A lesser Evil Paperwork Fairy would have punished her by drowning her in documents to review, but I am a bigger person than that.
I was telling the Wise Woman of the South about this over the weekend, and she commented that she felt sorry for the Grand Visier. I told her that I would probably start feeling sorry for said Grand Visier once I got over the urge to give her a good hard slap. That didn't happen until Sunday.
I really doubt that this will end well. I think Mr Big knows very well what sort of a person the Grand Visier is, and if Anarchist Prime isn't able to sort her out and it goes higher up (which may well happen - I can envision all sorts of scenarios in that initial confrontation), I wouldn't be surprised if she gets the Right Royal Order of the Boot. Personally, I'll keep feeling sorry for her, but I won't miss her.
The main problem, as I see it, is that the Grand Visier really needs to grow up. She keeps making a fuss over quality issues that, whilst they may possibly affect Production (which is why she found out about them in the first place), shouldn't do so because Quality is rather more on the ball than that and are quite capable of fixing such problems as they arise without any outside input.
Plus she showed signs of not taking my paperwork seriously. That, of course, is unforgiveable. A lesser Evil Paperwork Fairy would have punished her by drowning her in documents to review, but I am a bigger person than that.
I was telling the Wise Woman of the South about this over the weekend, and she commented that she felt sorry for the Grand Visier. I told her that I would probably start feeling sorry for said Grand Visier once I got over the urge to give her a good hard slap. That didn't happen until Sunday.
I really doubt that this will end well. I think Mr Big knows very well what sort of a person the Grand Visier is, and if Anarchist Prime isn't able to sort her out and it goes higher up (which may well happen - I can envision all sorts of scenarios in that initial confrontation), I wouldn't be surprised if she gets the Right Royal Order of the Boot. Personally, I'll keep feeling sorry for her, but I won't miss her.
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