Office Politics

In a hypothetical situation last week, colleague A and B were witnessed by many others, being rather unprofessional. Colleague A (aka CA) knows a lot of things about the organisation that others do not, and Colleague B (aka CB) was keen to get the goss. CB met with CA to talk about it. They did this rather indiscreetly, in a full glass plated office, for all the office to see. It was obvious that there goss to be dished and it made all very uncomfortable and uneasy. Emails started flying between the uncomfortable ones (aka uncomfyones), asking what the hell was going on and how pathetic CA and CB were.

As it turns out, CA (back at desk) started to read one of the uncomfyones’ emails about the atmosphere CA and CB created. CA was pissed to the max. Sent out a rather harsh email and the pressures of their job and how the information they know, they didn’t want to be privy to.

Met with silence, the uncomfyones decided to avoid all contact and proceed to work. CA cracked it today (hypothetically, of course), demanded to meet with us. They were met with declines, which infuriated CA further. Meanwhile, as usual, CB is nowhere to be found. This is pretty normal, when the shit hits the fan, CB gets out of there.

Anyway, CA cracked it today. The uncomfyones do not like confrontation and CA does. Bad match, right? CA lost and did not get to yell and carry on. There were no indiscreet meetings with indiscreet discussions. There was no satisfaction given to CA.

You see, CA is young, 25 and young. Idealistic and full of themselves. They are an over-achiever. They want to be in the know. They believe they should be in the know.

CB is 30ish, a cad, boyish, conniving, selfish and egotistical. He grins and people bow down before him. He likes to know the gossip. He’s an old gossip.
See the attraction?

This is what life can be like in hypothetical land. Political, conniving and unfaithful. You realise that you cannot trust anyone. This is a bad realisation. It’s lonely, but it’s a motto that I have lived by ever since beginning work. There’s a lesson to be learnt from this experience. Be careful of who you speak to at work, don’t say too much and don’t say anything that you don’t want others to know. It’ll always get back to them.

Remember, emails have bcc, people have prying eyes and you don’t have to tell the caller on the other end of the line that there’s someone else in the room.

My day would have been better served sleeping in.

Humiliation at work, excited people screaming happy birthday to me. People I do not know. People I don’t see outside of work. Chocolate cake. Not so good. It should have been. Card with well meaning wishes.

ANZ presentation. All staff in organisation listening. Well meaning manager announces “special” day. More humiliation and embarrassment. Shrink off to lunch with friend whose birthday it is tomorrow. She understands. Had a good chat. Wandered back to work.

On table, a gift voucher and potted orchid from manager and colleague. Very sweet and a little overwhelming. Who spends $100 on someone they don’t know too well? It was very appreciated though.

Stumbled through the rest of the day with headphones.

Don’t feel older. This isn’t about age. Just not enthused about birthday celebrations like I once was. Part of me is pleased that many people forgot. That is fine.

Scored a heart-smart grill and a lovely JAG wallet from Glen, plus $50 from mum. Might score something else on the weekend from other.

Big hugs to the crazy chick in Sweden. Thanks for the morning b’day wishes. It was sweet 🙂 Thanks to Di for never forgetting, no matter how much is on her mind 🙂

Can’t wait for Friday evening to arrive 🙂 Sleep ins and relaxation, Greek dinners and voucher-spending.

31 aint a bad number. It kinda means nothing actually. I’m going to have trouble remembering it. 30 was much easier to remember.

Get over it

Seriously, I’m getting a little sick and tired of hearing people carrying on about the influenza immunisation shot that is being given this year.

Our work organisation has offered to give it to us for free this year. This promotes a healthy work environment and the organisation tries to ensure that people come to work – because they aren’t sick with the flu!

So, when I hear ill-informed people deliberating about the merits of the flu shot, I get a bit jack of it.

For crying out loud, it’s a dead vaccination! Dead! That means you AREN’T getting injected with a live influenza virus which means you only DISPLAY the symptoms, you don’t actually get them! It can last a few hours, or 24hours. Not DAYS, WEEKS like the real virus.

And for those who carry on about how they got the shot last year and they still got the flu. Bloody get over yourselves! The flu shot only covers the super dangerous, put-you-in-hospital-you-could-die flus. Not the little ones that keep you in bed for days, moaning and carrying on about how sick you are! Seriously! Just be happy that you didn’t get a worse version like the one YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN IMMUNISED FOR IF YOU HAD BLOODY JUST SHUT UP AND GONE TO GET A FREE SHOT!

And let’s not forget the fact that this flu shot takes up to two weeks to become effective – anything inside that period of time is just your dumb luck! Get over it.

And just remember one last thing. If your employer offers you a flu vaccination for free and you don’t have a legit excuse, such as being pregnant or allergic to the ingredients in the shot, like eggs and certain antibiotics, then remember this – your employer is not going to be happy to know that you opted not to get the shot and chose to become sick!

In this instance, the word FREE should not raise your suspicion!

Vent over. Apologies for the rant, but I’ve had enough of hearing ill-informed people carry on like it’s a government conspiracy. Seriously. Be concerned about the real issues like global warming and the injustice of the war in Iraq! Grrr. 🙂

Incommunicado…

I know I owe a bunch of people email. I have been very quiet the last few days, and probably part of last week. There’s a good reason for this. The network link at work is down. That means, email and internet access have been completely useless for work access since Monday morning! I’ve had to work from home the past few days to get my document done, which is due Friday. Not impressed. It makes it very hard to communicate with people via email and phone, whom you’d normally see in person in the office.

We’ll survive. But can I just say that T*elstra are fucking pricks! Honestly, how long does it take to fix the network access in a building? That’s right, the entire building is without internet and email. This means, 14 floors! 14!

Grrr.

Anyway, am having breakfast, then off to the chiropractor before heading into work to see whether the network is up, down or in between. Such a debacle.

So, please forgive me for my silence, be patient and we’ll resume our normal programming shortly.

Office Politics

Today, I sat at my desk, viewing a whole wad of documents that I needed to print. I was conflicted, do I sit and print one and rush to the printer to claim it, before it gets sucked into the abyss of other people’s printing, never to be seen again, or do I print the entire lot and hope to God that they come home safely with me, and not in someone else’s pile?

I was conflicted. As I sat there thinking about what is best to do, I thought how irritating it can be to see someone just pick up paper from the printer, without looking at it and wandering off to their desk. It is one of my pet peeves working in an office.

People just don’t get it, they have no concern for anyone around them and think that the printer was put there for their own use. It’s just maddening.

Then there’s the people who print reams of paper, leaving no room for the rest of us with one or two pages to send through. So, you invariably stand there waiting for a whole pile of printing to get done before you pick up your half page document.

And then there are the people who stand behind you huffing and moaning and groaning at the printer, whilst you photocopy or print something. They have no patience or tolerance and act as if you are there getting a tan! I love standing at the printer, staring off into space as I mindlessly wait for my documentation to come through. I am sure I have better things to do.

So, I sat there at my PC, agonising as to whether I should print one document at a time, or send all of them through to the printer, finally deciding to send all of them through and make a quick run to the printer. As I rushed to the printer, I realised that no one else was hovering around, waiting for printouts, so snatched up my printing and scurried back to my desk.

As I sat at my desk, feeling smug and very efficient, I worked my way through the pages. This took me about 30 minutes to review. When I got to one of the final pages and saw Joe Bloggs name at the time, imagine my surprise when I realised the one thing I strived not to be, was who I was – a hypocritical document thief!

You just can’t win, can you?

So, I did the only honourable thing you can do in that sort of shared office supplies situation – I scurried back to the printer, dumped the offending page on the printer and ran like a bat-out-of-hell back to my desk before the owner could trace the missing page to me!

Ironic, isn’t it?

This was a true story brought to you by the letter H – Hypocrite and the letter N – Naive Fool.

What do you do?

I have a dilemma and I think I need advice.

I have this colleague who is a trying personality. Let me describe.

She’s 62. She’s gushy – everything and everyone is woooonderful! She’s highly irritating sometimes but gets very offended when it seems like people are ignoring her – if you are quieter than normal, she thinks it’s about her. She won’t ask for help with work, but she’s all over you when it’s a personal thing (offer to cook dinner, wash for you, whatever). She’s insecure and needy. She’s high maintenance. She needs validation. She isn’t thorough.

I have this colleague.

Today, she let us down. Let me start from the beginning.

Last week, colleague and I had a meeting with Fred (not his name). In this meeting, Fred asked us to put some information together. He asked for it a certain way, under certain headings but it was important to jsut get the information in there (keep this in mind). Colleague and I agreed, but it was colleague who was ultimately given responsibility for it. I was support and this was fine – I was flat out with a lot of other things.

Anyway, document is due tomorrow and a review was done today, this time with our manager involved. I was not a part of this review due to my busy nature (yes, i am very important!). Apparently my manager and Fred reviewed the document and manager made a point that the information did not follow the client’s headings (as previously discussed in the first meeting). But Fred did not tell manager that it was the original intention to do it that way and it had not been done.

So, being that it was at the 11th hour, I was brought in to review these documents and structure them according to the first meeting. My colleague was given other tasks and I was taken off my other VIDs (Very Important Duties). I was given the brief to rewrite 3 of the 6 documents. However, upon reviewing the other 3, I realised they too needed to be placed into the same format. I spent the entire afternoon rewriting, calling people for the missing information and fuming. As I was doing it, I realised that my colleague had basically done a huge dump of information from our library of information, without reviewing it, without tailoring it and without thinking about the discussion from the first session about structuring it to the client’s requirements. Yet, she had spent ‘all this time’ fluffing around with a document – doing god knows what.

My colleague wanted to know why I was stressing out and shitty. I said that the document hadn’t been tailored like the first discussion and needed a lot of work. She turned around and said, “Oh! But that’s what Fred said to do and that it would be tailored upon review!” The panic in her voice was evident, like she was excusing herself, trying to defend herself when no one was attacking her.

The thing is, Fred did say this, but he and I both expected that yes, she would dump the information in there, but the expectation was that she begin tailoring the information according to the client’s requirements, not sit passively by and wait to be told to do it. All I can think is that all she heard in that meeting was “blah blah blah, dump the information in, blah blah blah”.

The basics of our work is this – you dump relevant information in, and then you go back and think more about the requirements and you start to tailor the information. You don’t dump the information in and hope to hell the client can work out where the answers lie within the information. It’s such a lazy, apathetic attitude. It shits me. Tonight, I was at work later than anyone else, trying to pick up the pieces and cover for her, when I realised that I shouldn’t need to. So, I wrote my manager an email and without actually naming her, explained the discussion which originally took place.

What do I do about this woman? She’s incompetent and although has had SIMILAR experience in this line of work, wasn’t very good at it and still isn’t. She pretends to understand what is expected, but has such a romantic notion of things, really doesn’t take things in. You just can’t rely on her.

How do I talk to my manager about this? I have spoken to him about this on a very high level, but he’s so non committal about it. This is his style. It was his style last time when a colleague wasn’t performing. I left that job, disheartened. I don’t want to leave this job disheartened. I refuse to. I am better than her, more valuable. To me, she is someone who people roll their eyes about and tolerate. She’s a bit of a joke unfortunately. A kind heart, but not very professional.

Progress for the Impatient…

We’ve had a hugely busy weekend, but very productive. Finally, finally the sink has been stuck in – literally. Glen got the silicone glue gun out and stuck that sucker right into its big fat hole! Yay! The cooktop has been plonked into its hole, newly created for it on the weekend. Whilst I was sleeping last night, it was magically stuck in place by the cooktop-sticky-fairy! Amazing! Plus, the oven has been sat in its hole, but is not quite secured. However, it is working and lovely bright red numerals light its display.

All is right with the world – almost 🙂

It’s Monday night here, so on Wednesday, Mr Plumber Man will be visiting us in our lovely house to install the mixer tap, connect the gas to the cooktop, connect the dishwasher and fix up the trap under the sink. Yay! Hopefully by the weekend, we’ll be cooking on the cooktop and baking in the oven, plus cleaning all the dishes in the dishwasher!

In other news, I had my talent discussion today. Basically a review of where I want to be, what I see my strength as and what I think I need to get to the next level. My boss, whom I have worked with before seems to have great confidence in my abilities (he’s good for the old ego!), so it was quite shocking to hear him say that he couldn’t see anyone more perfect for his role than me, ie: when he moved on, he wanted me to replace him. This is a great hononur, but what is more pleasing is to know his manager holds me in high regard and sees me as the next manager of the team. 🙂 Very pleasing. Anyway, my manager basically said that he would undertake to give me more work to do – more of his work every now and then, to get me familiar with his role and he would take more time to mentor me. So, the glass ceiling isn’t as close as I thought it would be.

Anyway, still a very tired chicken here. So, off to have my evening shower and prepare for bed. Yes, I am a nanna.

Back to normal…

Since my Sydney trip last week, I have been blessed with headaches, sore backs and neck aches. This doesn’t count the fatigue included which just eggs on the pain. Grr. Anyway, after two visits to the chiro since Friday, I am feeling better. However, I had to stay home today to feel better. I’m not opposed to some personal days from work, but I usually prefer it to be more enjoyable! Grr.

Anyway, I’m back and alive.

Sydney trips were nice, got to meet a lot of nice colleagues and really felt like I was part of a team.

Been having lots of niggling feelings about maternal clocks ticking and a little bit of navel gazing regarding this topic. I’ve always been fairly adament about families, in that they are nice, but I didn’t think I had much to add to this topic, especially not becoming a mother. Now, I feel a bit different and am starting to linger when I see little kids running around, especially babies when they react to their surroundings. I especially feel it from people who blog, like Sonnet, Margie and Erika, who make motherhood seem so appealing, despite all the uphevels involved. I guess I want to feel complete and I couldn’t think of a better person to share this with than with Glen. I don’t always feel like this and there are times where I feel perfectly selfish and not all maternal. But I’m starting to notice that this maternal instinct is rearing it’s ugly head more and more often.

What to do? It’s a tough thing. Because not only do I have this internal struggle in my head, but the financial and logistical nightmare of it. I’m very conscious of the fact that I will most likely always be the highest income earner in our family. And that’s not to belittle what Glen contributes, but because he’s very satisified with his job and has no great ambitions to climb, he can’t move further up the food chain and therefore will always earn the same income. Whereas, I can earn bonuses and increments to my salary. My type of job is very specialised and there aren’t many of us out there, so I can almost afford to pick and choose. With this choice comes nice income. We really couldn’t afford for me to be an at-home mum.

Oh bah humbug. The joys of life. Discussions have been had about kids and the basic consensus is that they would be nice to have, but let’s wait until we’ve paid some of our mortgage off and perhaps gotten rid of the car loan. But what’s to say that if we did all of that, that I was actually fertile, could have children, or that Glen was physically able to have them? What if we waited until we were financially able to have them, only to discover that we couldn’t? That would be a waste, almost.

Grrr.

Too much time to think today.

Need to watch some tv and just ignore these fresh feelings.

Blade Runner?

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From Centrepoint Tower, originally uploaded by Sams76.

Just uploaded a stack of photos to flickr. Some from my Sydney trip this week and a bunch of Aella with Tilly and Zeus.

Enjoy 🙂

Will post a proper entry shortly, just a bit tired from the trip and currently have a migraine from all the sitting around in meetings and stupid Airtrek simulations – I’ll discuss later.

We Didn’t Start The Fire…

I was reading some material this week which might help me do my job. I came across this cool document which discusses the differences in today’s workforces. Basically the document wrote that HR departments need to treat their workforces; not as one, but as four because of the different generations – one being Generation Y. And although my age states I am in fact a Generation Xer, I can totally relate to some of the things they discussed, and the following.

I can totally relate to the “Work to Live” philosophy. I grew up as a child of divorce, although not witnessing it, I was the product of the uncertainty surrounding it and the instability in our household income etc. I have no affiliation or loyalty to any workplace. However, I have loyalty to my immediate team, if in fact, I get along with them!

This was part of the document I Was reading:

“The Vietnam War is as old as WW1 and WW11. Black Monday, 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression. They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up. Tienanmen Square means nothing to them. Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic. Atari predates them as do vinyl albums. The expression ‘you sound like a broken record’ means nothing to them. Most have never seen a TV set with only four channels, nor have they seen a black and white TV. Roller skating has always meant inline for them. They never took a swim and thought about Jaws. They can’t imagine what hard contact lenses are. They don’t know who Mork was or where he was from. The Titanic was found? They thought we always knew where it was. Michael Jackson has always been white. McDonalds never came in Styrofoam containers.”

You know, some of this applies to me, even though I was born near the end of the Generation Xer. I would say that I was almost meant to be a Generation Yer, but I guess like most things similar, I am on the cusp of both.

It kinda reminds me of Billy Joel’s very insightful song back in the nineties, ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’.

Reading this stuff made me realise how different I am to my colleagues and to others who come to Australia from other countries where the work ethic can be drastically different. I often wonder whether my commitment to my job is there compared to others who refuse to slack of and relax and who are constantly looking for something to do. But then, I’m a product of my environment and my life choices reflect that.

I have chosen to have children late, or not at all. I spend my money rather than save a lot of it. I don’t tend to stay in my jobs that long. I buy expensive toilet tissue rather than skimp to save cost! It just all makes sense.