Work

[Sergio Mendacious]

7 hours ago, hallicks said:

Are you 100% sure they’re not talking about Red, Breen and Glue? 

I did think he was joking, deliberately mixing it up with Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

[Chris B]

20 hours ago, Sergio Mendacious said:

I work in book production, and the junior member of my department is driving me crazy for the stupidest reason — he keeps saying RBG instead of RGB, and (worse) CYMK instead of CMYK. I'm worried someone who matters will question this, how do I bring it up without seeming weird (if that's possible)?

I'd just gently correct him when he says it - 'CYMK, not CMYK'. If he reacts to you doing so, just say you don't want him to get it wrong in front of a client or someone who might get weird about it.

[The King of Old School]

51 minutes ago, Chris B said:

I'd just gently correct him when he says it - 'CYMK, not CMYK'. If he reacts to you doing so, just say you don't want him to get it wrong in front of a client or someone who might get weird about it.

Don't tell him this, he will get even more confused.

[Chris B]

Just now, The King of Old School said:

Don't tell him this, he will get even more confused.

These things are complicated.

[Lorne Malvo]

Absolutely lost my head with a customer today. He's a regular who orders his karate tracksuits from us, but he's ridiculously disorganised, leaving it late every year to order then telling us 'I need these in a week as they're for a tour!' 

He ordered about a week ago and made it clear it's vital these tracksuits are to be with him no later than today. If they're any later than that he will be cancelling the order and expecting a full refund.

However, he didn't have the full order at the time as he was still waiting on his squad to get back to him, so he gave me about half of the sizes he needed then phoned about another 7 times during the day last week to add extra tracksuits on each time. It would've been a much quicker and less frustrating process if he had collated all of the sizes needed first and done it all in one phone call, but we explain this to the silly fucker every year and he never listens. 

Anyway, after about 11 phone calls I finally have his full order, I place it on a rush (at our cost, eating into our very slim profit, so we're hardly making anything on it) and it arrives last thing yesterday. We printed the order up this morning so by 9am it was all complete. I phoned him up telling him it's ready to pick up, and his reply.. 

"Oh I can't pick it up today, I'm on holiday".
Absolute fucking prick. 

Edited yesterday at 10:24 AM by Lorne Malvo

[BomberPat]

this week has been miserable. I know I say that a lot.

I'm involved with a set of student bursaries. For one of them, I coordinate a massive admissions process that I've been arguing isn't part of our team's remit, and my line manager handles the actual payment side of it. Both ends of the process are extremely time-consuming and complex. Problem. My line manager - the only person who has done this job at all for about 15 years, prior to me starting to support him with it - was given voluntary redundancy in August. His replacement went on leave for three weeks in September, came back for less than a week, then was signed off sick. In the few days they were actually working, they did none of the jobs they assured me would get done. The person acting up above them offered support whenever we were in a team meeting, but every time it came to me actually asking them for said support, they went radio silent - hard to read that as anything more than wanting to look good in front of everyone, but not actually delivering the goods.

I was on leave for three days last week. Nothing I outlined in my handover email that should have been done while I was off got done. Line manager still off sick, so is guy who offered support if I needed it. The whole payment process for 100 students, totalling more than £200,000, needed to be done on Monday. Literally nobody around who knows how to do it. So, despite being bottom of the rung, lowest grade member of our team, I figure it out as best I can and get it done - still unpicking some of the complications of it most of yesterday, in the office early this morning to tidy it all up.

For any other job, I'm 100% work to rule, never do anything above my pay grade, and willing to let things fail to prove a point. If this were about contracting or invoicing or some project or other, I'd have just said "not my job, take it up with senior management, they're the ones who cut our team in half and expected us to still provide the same service". But I can't bring myself to do that when it's students ended up disadvantaged through no fault of their own. That's my red line. 

 

The problem is that I've done it now, and I need to make it clear that they can't expect that they'll get this from me again next month. Particularly as now there are academics - who were never good at learning what other people actually do, or who an appropriate point of contact is - that have my name attached to this stuff, and have decided I am the go-to person for absolutely everything.

Plan is - send out a blanket email "reminding" everyone that I am only Grade 5, and the work I am being asked to do is Grade 7 or above. This afternoon, we have a meeting with a member of senior management - I don't trust him, I think he's a snake, and he usually uses these meetings to deflect from the concerns we raise to talk about how something unrelated is going well - and I have every intention of not letting him railroad the conversation again, and pointing out that it's completely unsustainable to expect a university to operate on a few people remembering how things work, and someone at my level having to figure things out for himself when they're not around. Bonus if I can get him to actually admit any culpability or responsibility for why there's so few of us left in the first place, but not holding my breath on that one. After that, might get myself signed off.

[SuperBacon]

I got made redundant a few months ago, tided myself over with some temp work, started a new permanent role last Monday and I absolutely fucking hate it. Genuinely hate it, and I feel so depressed about the whole thing.

I have a few interviews lined up for the next few weeks, and can't moan about a job, but God I cannot stand it. I knew within two days it was a mistake, and I'm usually someone who will give it a go, but I know I won't ever like it.

The job market is an absolute shit show at the moment.

[Lorne Malvo]

17 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

The job market is an absolute shit show at the moment.

I've been looking on and off for about 2 years now and have never been so disillusioned and in despair about the whole job-finding process. Learning on the job seems to be a thing of the past now, every company seems to value experience above everything else. Which is fair enough, if I was in their shoes I'd rather hire somebody with experience and some knowledge as opposed to somebody with none, but often they're looking for experience in an extremely narrow, specific field and I have no idea how you get a foot in. 

Sorry to hear you were made redundant, especially as it sounded like you enjoyed the job. And I'm doubly gutted that we won't get any more pictures in the sandwich thread.

[gmoney]

21 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

I got made redundant a few months ago, tided myself over with some temp work, started a new permanent role last Monday and I absolutely fucking hate it. Genuinely hate it, and I feel so depressed about the whole thing.

I have a few interviews lined up for the next few weeks, and can't moan about a job, but God I cannot stand it. I knew within two days it was a mistake, and I'm usually someone who will give it a go, but I know I won't ever like it.

The job market is an absolute shit show at the moment.

Gutted for you mate. I know you're an enthusiastic fella and you've got a lot of nous when it comes to interviewing, so hopefully you won't be in the shite job for too long. 

[SuperBacon]

1 minute ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Sorry to hear you were made redundant, especially as it sounded like you enjoyed the job.

Not only did I love it, I was fucking excellent at it, and that takes a lot for me to say as I don't have any confidence. 

6 of us were made redundant in the team, the whole thing was terribly handled, and people who I thought I liked and who liked me were non existent throughout that time (my ex said I'm just being a bit naive and the reality of it is no one cares about anyone: bit nihilistic but I now agree)

From a pragmatic point of view, I got it, hold no ill will towards anyone involved in the process making as that's bad karma, but all those small things made me feel really let down.

And looking for something new was beyond a joke. I wasn't even getting an interview for literally the same job in another organisation, which I am obviously qualified for.

And this goes to all levels by the way. What the government is saying about jobs, unemployment, opportunities, growth is all absolutely bollocks. Look at it this way, in my last role I was supporting around 15/20 people gain their CSCS card every month. With the amount of construction about and the need to build that we're being told about, those workers should surely walk into a role within days right? 

Well, they're not. So there is a massive discrepancy between what is being said and the reality of it all, and that goes across all sectors and includes employability programmes as well. The people at the top making all these decisions and throwing billions of pounds at these things have absolutely no idea about the reality of it all.

I'm a big boy, I found a job, had to take a pay cut, but I'll make it work until something I really like comes up (one next week that I do really love the sound and look of) but it's just so depressing to take a role that I know I will never, ever enjoy after leaving one I loved (not all the time) and was excellent at.

I'm in Southampton tomorrow, will try and find a good sandwich for you all

[TheBurningRed]

1 hour ago, SuperBacon said:

The job market is an absolute shit show at the moment.

It really is. I wanted to be out of my job by September. It's not happened. Nothing out there that pays as well as I'm on and I can't afford to take a step down or pay cut. It's shit. I'm miserable here.

I applied for job in my company recently. I was very experienced for the role. I was at least guaranteed an interview. Knew I'd be excellent at it. Got rejected, not even an interview. My manager was at their site not long after and said it's a shit show and whoever is vetting, has done a terrible job as they now have to get rid of everyone, including the role I was extremely qualified for. I should go for it, but I'm being petty and don't want it now.

[SuperBacon]

8 minutes ago, TheBurningRed said:

Nothing out there that pays as well as I'm on and I can't afford to take a step down or pay cut. It's shit.

Well neither can I but I had no choice unfortunately. Stay where you are and look is the only advice I can give I'm afraid.

I did have a good think when this all happened and I'd love to be able to retrain and qualify as a social worker or a tutor in adult education, but the reality is I just can't afford it. Annoyingly in my last role I very nearly took a role that would've given me the social work degree (job for life innit?) and couldn't move as the SMT said I was needed in my team, and then I was made redundant! 

It's all bollocks isn't it? We should all be allowed to do jobs we love for good pay.

How can we monetise the forum? Kwesh consultants? Poo habit doctorates? Fry up experts?

[westlondonmist]

2 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Absolutely lost my head with a customer today. He's a regular who orders his karate tracksuits from us, but he's ridiculously disorganised, leaving it late every year to order then telling us 'I need these in a week as they're for a tour!' 

He ordered about a week ago and made it clear it's vital these tracksuits are to be with him no later than today. If they're any later than that he will be cancelling the order and expecting a full refund.

However, he didn't have the full order at the time as he was still waiting on his squad to get back to him, so he gave me about half of the sizes he needed then phoned about another 7 times during the day last week to add extra tracksuits on each time. It would've been a much quicker and less frustrating process if he had collated all of the sizes needed first and done it all in one phone call, but we explain this to the silly fucker every year and he never listens. 

Anyway, after about 11 phone calls I finally have his full order, I place it on a rush (at our cost, eating into our very slim profit, so we're hardly making anything on it) and it arrives last thing yesterday. We printed the order up this morning so by 9am it was all complete. I phoned him up telling him it's ready to pick up, and his reply.. 

"Oh I can't pick it up today, I'm on holiday".
Absolute fucking prick. 

So my in-laws, who own a shop that does printing/embroiding on sports clothes and work/school uniforms plus engraving, had issues like this all the time. They were scared to put a short notice price on them in case people went elsewhere. One member of staff didn't give a fuck and kept on saying that's a short turn around so will be a 10% fee. More often than not people paid it as they were in a rush and didn't want to shop around, some just agreed to have it a few days later (so didn't actually need it that quick anyway). In the end they went that route and if they did lose some custom they just realised they didn't have to work through the weekend for bugger all profit. The sad thing is that people think that because you buy something for £20 then that's £20 profit, when there is buying the item, vat and staffing costs. 

[Onyx2]

4 hours ago, BomberPat said:

This afternoon, we have a meeting with a member of senior management

Is your part of the academic world unionised? Can you get a rep to support?

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

Potential of a 4month job 'swap' to Australia....cant go for it though due to family circumstances and cant afford to take them with me

Fuck mulitnational companies making millions in profit and not giving a toss about their frontline customers or staff.

 

Man I wish I was able to go. 16 weeks in Oz during our winter would be amazing

 Ah well maybe next time...