6th
September, 2001.
The system
we use for our inventory only accepts specific values and, helpfully provides
a list of those values through a drop-down menu.
"This
one here on this requisition that's called Basic Module, should I enter
that as Basic Module, and these ones here called Network CALs
as Network CALs?"
Thursday 6 September 2001
Wednesday 5 September 2001
5th September, 2001.
"I don't know what <insert name> is actually ordering on this requisition. Should I ring him to check?"
"Yes, that would be good." No, let's just give people what we think they want - it seems to work for Microsoft, and everyone loves them for it.
"Do you know his phone number?"
"No." Why yes, I've memorised the entire staff phone directory in preparation for this moment. TYPE HIS FRICKING NAME INTO THE ONLINE DIRECTORY, PUSH "SEARCH" AND QUIT STEALING MINUTES OF MY LIFE, YOU BRAIN-DEAD DUGONG!!!
"Should I look it up, then?"
Silence.
"I don't know what version of the software this guy's using. It'll be okay, won't it, if I just send him the enablement codes for a version randomly selected from the eight or nine codes we have here?"
"No, it won't."
"How come?"
"Because the reason we have different enablement codes for different versions is that different versions require different enablement codes."
"Ohhhhh...."
"I don't know what <insert name> is actually ordering on this requisition. Should I ring him to check?"
"Yes, that would be good." No, let's just give people what we think they want - it seems to work for Microsoft, and everyone loves them for it.
"Do you know his phone number?"
"No." Why yes, I've memorised the entire staff phone directory in preparation for this moment. TYPE HIS FRICKING NAME INTO THE ONLINE DIRECTORY, PUSH "SEARCH" AND QUIT STEALING MINUTES OF MY LIFE, YOU BRAIN-DEAD DUGONG!!!
"Should I look it up, then?"
Silence.
"I don't know what version of the software this guy's using. It'll be okay, won't it, if I just send him the enablement codes for a version randomly selected from the eight or nine codes we have here?"
"No, it won't."
"How come?"
"Because the reason we have different enablement codes for different versions is that different versions require different enablement codes."
"Ohhhhh...."
Tuesday 28 August 2001
28th
August, 2001.
Some people just shouldn't be allowed to speak to me ever...
There needs to be a reason?
For wasting my time asking me what department a particular abbreviation stood for, because "it's not in the system". Leaving aside the issue of her having previously entered many, many items under this very same abbreviation in the recent past, there are also three other sources *on her workstation* (including the system that the information wasn't in) where she could have simply looked it up herself in half the time it took her to complain to me that she couldn't find it listed anywhere.
"Ohmygod, ohmygod, I can't find my hands!"
"What were you doing with them last?"
"Trying to find my butt!"
"Try your back-pockets."
"Well I'll be - how did you know they'd be there? I don't remember putting them in there!"
Some people just shouldn't be allowed to speak to me ever...
There needs to be a reason?
For wasting my time asking me what department a particular abbreviation stood for, because "it's not in the system". Leaving aside the issue of her having previously entered many, many items under this very same abbreviation in the recent past, there are also three other sources *on her workstation* (including the system that the information wasn't in) where she could have simply looked it up herself in half the time it took her to complain to me that she couldn't find it listed anywhere.
"Ohmygod, ohmygod, I can't find my hands!"
"What were you doing with them last?"
"Trying to find my butt!"
"Try your back-pockets."
"Well I'll be - how did you know they'd be there? I don't remember putting them in there!"
Monday 27 August 2001
27th
August, 2001.
Have adopted the following precautions to reduce the amount of time I'm exposed to the Cow-orker.
1. Environment.
Ten days ago I removed all spare chairs from the vicinity of my desk. Now when she comes to talk at me, she's no longer able to pull up a chair and make herself comfortable. Apparently in the absence of a chair (or large body of water) to support her bulk, the Cow-orker must retreat to her own area to rest. Interestingly, she only drew attention to the absence of chairs today, leading me to suspect that so far her reduced visiting time has been the result of instinct rather than reason and it genuinely has taken her this long to realise what's wrong.
2. Interaction (and avoiding it).
This is still in the testing stage, but results have been encouraging:
Research into further counter-measures continues.
Have adopted the following precautions to reduce the amount of time I'm exposed to the Cow-orker.
1. Environment.
Ten days ago I removed all spare chairs from the vicinity of my desk. Now when she comes to talk at me, she's no longer able to pull up a chair and make herself comfortable. Apparently in the absence of a chair (or large body of water) to support her bulk, the Cow-orker must retreat to her own area to rest. Interestingly, she only drew attention to the absence of chairs today, leading me to suspect that so far her reduced visiting time has been the result of instinct rather than reason and it genuinely has taken her this long to realise what's wrong.
2. Interaction (and avoiding it).
This is still in the testing stage, but results have been encouraging:
"Have I told you about The Spawn's latest trick?"Whether she has, in fact, told me or not is irrevelant. Because of the volume she speaks at and her uncontrollable urge to share such information with everyone she comes into contact with, the chances are very good that I do already know about the latest stage in The Spawn's development (which is a sore point in itself).
"Yes."
"Oh, well..."
Research into further counter-measures continues.
Thursday 23 August 2001
23rd
August, 2001.
"This license agreement says we can use this for development but not for production, and because I'm doing a PR course at university right now, I think this is obviously a marketing tool."
"Fine, but the license agreement still says we have to pay for it as soon as we use it in production."
"But I don't think they mean it, because it's just a marketing tool."
"Okay, but that's not what the license agreement says and we still have to pay for it as soon as we use it for anything more than development."
"But I see it as a marketing tool *and* a development tool, so anything we use it for will be for development and not production."
"Obviously the vendor doesn't see it that way, or they wouldn't distinguish between production and development in this bit of paper you keep waving about in front of me." There follows a brief and apparently fruitless explanation of the difference between production use and development use.
"They don't mean it, because it's really only a marketing tool. Besides, it doesn't specifically refer to this package in the license - it only refers to The Software."
"What does it say on the front of the pamphlet?"
"End-User License Agreement for Bonus CDs."
"Which includes...?"
"This one, but it's really only a marketing tool. I'm sure they don't really expect us to pay for it if we start getting productive use out of it. And how would they know, anyway?"
[Momentary silence while I absorb the monumental stupidity of this last question. Seventy-five percent of Cow-Orker's job revolves around license management and software compliance - to have her suddenly declare that, in effect, "it only matters if we get caught" makes me wonder just what she thinks she's paid to do here. Apart from making my life hell, that is.]
"They might find out through an external audit, or they might not. That's not the point. Using it that way would be in breach of license and that's the sort of thing we're trying to avoid. It's why I went to that software management course last year, and why I recommended that you go - avoiding that kind of casual piracy is what our positions are about."
"But can you see where I'm coming from?
Yes, but I'm hoping by the time you start approaching our atmosphere there'll be enough warning and enough missiles to ensure you never set foot on my planet.
"They're obviously giving it to us for free so that we'll be so impressed we'll rush out and buy their enterprise product, except we already have a site license for that so we won't need to pay for anything at all! Isn't that great?"
"What about the production work we've done with it?"
"But because I think this is a development tool, anything we use this for will be development and will have been done during the development phase, so even if we're using it in production we don't need to pay for it."
"Just like if we install an unregistered copy of, say, Photoshop, create a Photoshop document and then uninstall the programme - we haven't really committed software piracy?"
"Oh, would it really be like that? But it's just a marketing tool like the kind we've been talking about in my classes at university."
Eventually she retreated, still disagreeing (thank God I hid the spare chair that used to be in my area - not being able to sit down meant she couldn't make herself comfortable to continue arguing). Since then she's gone through to deliver a summary of our disagreement to our manager, and has just discussed it at further length on the phone with her father, who runs a failing computer store and apparently agrees with her interpretation.
Sigh.
"This license agreement says we can use this for development but not for production, and because I'm doing a PR course at university right now, I think this is obviously a marketing tool."
"Fine, but the license agreement still says we have to pay for it as soon as we use it in production."
"But I don't think they mean it, because it's just a marketing tool."
"Okay, but that's not what the license agreement says and we still have to pay for it as soon as we use it for anything more than development."
"But I see it as a marketing tool *and* a development tool, so anything we use it for will be for development and not production."
"Obviously the vendor doesn't see it that way, or they wouldn't distinguish between production and development in this bit of paper you keep waving about in front of me." There follows a brief and apparently fruitless explanation of the difference between production use and development use.
"They don't mean it, because it's really only a marketing tool. Besides, it doesn't specifically refer to this package in the license - it only refers to The Software."
"What does it say on the front of the pamphlet?"
"End-User License Agreement for Bonus CDs."
"Which includes...?"
"This one, but it's really only a marketing tool. I'm sure they don't really expect us to pay for it if we start getting productive use out of it. And how would they know, anyway?"
[Momentary silence while I absorb the monumental stupidity of this last question. Seventy-five percent of Cow-Orker's job revolves around license management and software compliance - to have her suddenly declare that, in effect, "it only matters if we get caught" makes me wonder just what she thinks she's paid to do here. Apart from making my life hell, that is.]
"They might find out through an external audit, or they might not. That's not the point. Using it that way would be in breach of license and that's the sort of thing we're trying to avoid. It's why I went to that software management course last year, and why I recommended that you go - avoiding that kind of casual piracy is what our positions are about."
"But can you see where I'm coming from?
Yes, but I'm hoping by the time you start approaching our atmosphere there'll be enough warning and enough missiles to ensure you never set foot on my planet.
"They're obviously giving it to us for free so that we'll be so impressed we'll rush out and buy their enterprise product, except we already have a site license for that so we won't need to pay for anything at all! Isn't that great?"
"What about the production work we've done with it?"
"But because I think this is a development tool, anything we use this for will be development and will have been done during the development phase, so even if we're using it in production we don't need to pay for it."
"Just like if we install an unregistered copy of, say, Photoshop, create a Photoshop document and then uninstall the programme - we haven't really committed software piracy?"
"Oh, would it really be like that? But it's just a marketing tool like the kind we've been talking about in my classes at university."
Eventually she retreated, still disagreeing (thank God I hid the spare chair that used to be in my area - not being able to sit down meant she couldn't make herself comfortable to continue arguing). Since then she's gone through to deliver a summary of our disagreement to our manager, and has just discussed it at further length on the phone with her father, who runs a failing computer store and apparently agrees with her interpretation.
Sigh.
Friday 27 July 2001
27th
July, 2001.
Yes, yes, stupid cow-orker - it would be easier if you looked up the item in the catalogue rather than asking me to remember which of 1200 serial numbers applied to a particular obscure product that you can't even tell me the right name of. Now why don't you go and fricking do just that?
Yes, yes, stupid cow-orker - it would be easier if you looked up the item in the catalogue rather than asking me to remember which of 1200 serial numbers applied to a particular obscure product that you can't even tell me the right name of. Now why don't you go and fricking do just that?
Tuesday 24 July 2001
24th
July, 2001.
Cow-orker got bored.
Cow-orker decided to go into one of our shared databases and make it look all nice and pretty using her mighty database design skills, without bothering to tell me.
Cow-orker has successfully proven by virtue of a green, red, and blue colour scheme that her aesthetic sense is even more suspect than I'd previously believed.
I think I'll go lock down some databases.
Cow-orker got bored.
Cow-orker decided to go into one of our shared databases and make it look all nice and pretty using her mighty database design skills, without bothering to tell me.
Cow-orker has successfully proven by virtue of a green, red, and blue colour scheme that her aesthetic sense is even more suspect than I'd previously believed.
I think I'll go lock down some databases.
Thursday 19 July 2001
Monday 16 July 2001
16th
July, 2001.
Insert standard complaint about cow-orkers...
She's doing the printer routine again. Someone else has asked her why she doesn't just print them all off and then collect everything at once. The reply boiled down to "because I might have to use my brain", but was phrased to make it sound like a wild and crazy idiosyncracy that we should be amused by.
I *so* do not need this.
Insert standard complaint about cow-orkers...
She's doing the printer routine again. Someone else has asked her why she doesn't just print them all off and then collect everything at once. The reply boiled down to "because I might have to use my brain", but was phrased to make it sound like a wild and crazy idiosyncracy that we should be amused by.
I *so* do not need this.
Wednesday 11 July 2001
11th July, 2001.
A Prayer: God give me strength, because you know I'm going to need it later today when I'm carting 150kg of dead cow-orker to dump in the nearby river.
Is it wrong to spend so much time contemplating the death of annoying co-workers? This question bothers me at times, and then the Cow-orker gets in to work and I realise within minutes that it's perfectly normal and I'm worrying about nothing.
A Prayer: God give me strength, because you know I'm going to need it later today when I'm carting 150kg of dead cow-orker to dump in the nearby river.
Is it wrong to spend so much time contemplating the death of annoying co-workers? This question bothers me at times, and then the Cow-orker gets in to work and I realise within minutes that it's perfectly normal and I'm worrying about nothing.
Tuesday 10 July 2001
10th July, 2001.
The inevitable downside to being off for a day: the half hour update about all the "excitement" I missed.
"And if you read this email in your Inbox..."
[pause while she waits until I open the email and read it]
"... it says this [she repeats the contents of the email]. But you don't need to worry about that one because I told them what they wanted to know."
"And this person called, but didn't leave a message. I haven't called them back."
"And then someone called about this vendor's contract and it was a really serious problem that had everyone worried. So I looked up the contract in the filing cabinet, and it said something different from what I thought it would, so I asked someone else and they thought the same thing. Then we asked a third person and they thought the same thing we did. So then I asked a fourth person, and he said that as far as he was concerned the contract meant we could do exactly what we'd been doing with it all along. So then I called the company who'd actually sent us the contract, and they said it was okay and the fourth person I'd asked had been right all along. So it wasn't really a serious problem after all."
"Oh, and if you look at this email it says this, but I didn't feel up to dealing with her because she's just a waste of time anyway so you'll probably want to make something up to give her." (A 10 second email during the course of this diatribe takes care of the "waste of time").
Unfortunately the Cow-Orker continues along its juggernaught-like path of stream-of-consciousness conversation for another ten minutes after this...
Damn, and I had to have the non-drowsy Sudafed, too. Where did I leave that Panadeine?
Unbelievably, it gets worse:
"I was looking for these - where were they hidden?"
RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FRICKING EYES!!! HAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!
I hope the chest pains are just my asthma playing up and not a sign of an impending coronary. Someone suggested via email that I try visualising a calm, blue ocean. I don't find calm, blue oceans to be inherently relaxing, so I mentally add a pack of sharks in a feeding frenzy with the Cow-Orker in the middle of them.
It helps.
The inevitable downside to being off for a day: the half hour update about all the "excitement" I missed.
"And if you read this email in your Inbox..."
[pause while she waits until I open the email and read it]
"... it says this [she repeats the contents of the email]. But you don't need to worry about that one because I told them what they wanted to know."
"And this person called, but didn't leave a message. I haven't called them back."
"And then someone called about this vendor's contract and it was a really serious problem that had everyone worried. So I looked up the contract in the filing cabinet, and it said something different from what I thought it would, so I asked someone else and they thought the same thing. Then we asked a third person and they thought the same thing we did. So then I asked a fourth person, and he said that as far as he was concerned the contract meant we could do exactly what we'd been doing with it all along. So then I called the company who'd actually sent us the contract, and they said it was okay and the fourth person I'd asked had been right all along. So it wasn't really a serious problem after all."
"Oh, and if you look at this email it says this, but I didn't feel up to dealing with her because she's just a waste of time anyway so you'll probably want to make something up to give her." (A 10 second email during the course of this diatribe takes care of the "waste of time").
Unfortunately the Cow-Orker continues along its juggernaught-like path of stream-of-consciousness conversation for another ten minutes after this...
Damn, and I had to have the non-drowsy Sudafed, too. Where did I leave that Panadeine?
Unbelievably, it gets worse:
"I was looking for these - where were they hidden?"
RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FRICKING EYES!!! HAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!
I hope the chest pains are just my asthma playing up and not a sign of an impending coronary. Someone suggested via email that I try visualising a calm, blue ocean. I don't find calm, blue oceans to be inherently relaxing, so I mentally add a pack of sharks in a feeding frenzy with the Cow-Orker in the middle of them.
It helps.
Monday 9 July 2001
9th July, 2001.
Ah, peace... I'm at home, sick, dosed up on Sudafed and some generic paracetamol/codeine combination to keep the sinus headaches and cold symptoms at bay. It's mid-winter, the house has the kind of interior temperature normally associated with high-level poltergeist activity, there's nothing to eat, and I'm still happier than I would be if I were healthy, warm and at work.
Ah, peace... I'm at home, sick, dosed up on Sudafed and some generic paracetamol/codeine combination to keep the sinus headaches and cold symptoms at bay. It's mid-winter, the house has the kind of interior temperature normally associated with high-level poltergeist activity, there's nothing to eat, and I'm still happier than I would be if I were healthy, warm and at work.
Tuesday 19 June 2001
18th
June, 2001.
In the office for only 10 minutes before someone decides I need to know all about their cousin's 3-year-old who's been diagnosed as having mild autism. None of the family know what autism actually involves, and seem to think he's going to grow up to be Dustin Hoffman. Apparently these are the kinds of things it's important for me to know...
In the office for only 10 minutes before someone decides I need to know all about their cousin's 3-year-old who's been diagnosed as having mild autism. None of the family know what autism actually involves, and seem to think he's going to grow up to be Dustin Hoffman. Apparently these are the kinds of things it's important for me to know...
Wednesday 30 May 2001
29th
May, 2001.
God save me from getting as stupid as my cow-orkers.
One of them wanted to know if she could print through my laserjet (3 metres from her desk) rather than have to keep walking 4 metres across the room to the centrally networked printer.
So now she's entering some details into a database, printing off one page, walking around here to collect it, taking it back to her desk and putting it into an envelope.
She then enters some more information, prints off one, page, walks around here to collect the printout, takes it back to her desk and stuffs it in an envelope.
Then she enters a little bit more information, etc...
There's obviously something broken in her head that prevents her from realising that it would be much simpler to enter all the data in one go, collect all the resulting printouts together rather than singly, and then putting them into envelopes.
While it's true that I could suggest this to her, I already suspect that the answer will be "Because I find it easier this way" and that any attempt to impose common sense on her work practices will just end in frustration.
God save me from getting as stupid as my cow-orkers.
One of them wanted to know if she could print through my laserjet (3 metres from her desk) rather than have to keep walking 4 metres across the room to the centrally networked printer.
So now she's entering some details into a database, printing off one page, walking around here to collect it, taking it back to her desk and putting it into an envelope.
She then enters some more information, prints off one, page, walks around here to collect the printout, takes it back to her desk and stuffs it in an envelope.
Then she enters a little bit more information, etc...
There's obviously something broken in her head that prevents her from realising that it would be much simpler to enter all the data in one go, collect all the resulting printouts together rather than singly, and then putting them into envelopes.
While it's true that I could suggest this to her, I already suspect that the answer will be "Because I find it easier this way" and that any attempt to impose common sense on her work practices will just end in frustration.
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