A Case Of The Mondays: Vent Your Work Spleen Here

[SuprSuprElevated]

2 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

Oh, my god, I need that cup. 

Amazon, of course.

amazon

Edited August 30, 2022 by SuprSuprElevated

[Annber03]

Awesome, thank you :). 

[magicdog]

30 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

Oh, my god, I need that cup. 

Ask and ye shall receive.

[Annber03]

Thank you, too :). 

[chocolatine]

1 hour ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

I wish it were that easy in my job. A lot of meetings are the result of long email/Slack threads with no resolution.

[Blergh]

20 hours ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

Do they have that cup with the notation 'an email between just two colleagues instead of taking up the whole department's time with said meeting'?

Would you believe I'm asking for a friend?

[chocolatine]

18 minutes ago, Blergh said:

Do they have that cup with the notation 'an email between just two colleagues instead of taking up the whole department's time with said meeting'?

Would you believe I'm asking for a friend?

It's probably an email that starts innocently enough between two or three colleagues, then gets more and more people added to it and the initial issue muddled so much that the VP or C-level exec who ends up on the thread (because people love to "escalate" when they can't make a decision) just yells for everyone to get into a meeting and figure this out already.

[Cloud9Shopper]

On 8/29/2022 at 11:25 PM, SuprSuprElevated said:

This is basically my old job. I remember getting an invite to a huge department-wide Zoom one Friday afternoon (!!) only to hear that two people I’d never worked with, much less met, were taking other opportunities. One had been promoted and the other was leaving the company. I was thinking, who are these people and why was it necessary to call a 10-minute Friday afternoon meeting for this? 

Anyway. I’ve been at my new job for a month now just about and it’s going well considering I’ve never had an HR-type position before. There are a lot of moving pieces when hiring people between coordinating with schools for summer associate interviews, getting background checks going, checking references, etc. My biggest challenge has been keeping our emails filed appropriately and staying on top of how my firm does things so we can document the processes for the future. 

I am enjoying it though! I feel like I fit in well with the legal environment because people are friendly but there’s no time for all the touchy feely motivational emails and icebreaker games that seemed to dominate meetings and management priorities at Old Job. It’s nice that people will make small talk and that they do occasional virtual activities, but everyone is at work to work, not for questions like “What does the way you dance say about you?” 

[magicdog]

5 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

I remember getting an invite to a huge department-wide Zoom one Friday afternoon (!!) only to hear that two people I’d never worked with, much less met, were taking other opportunities. One had been promoted and the other was leaving the company. I was thinking, who are these people and why was it necessary to call a 10-minute Friday afternoon meeting for this? 

My job was often this pre-pandemic.  They'd beg us to come in on our off hours (depending on the shift you're working) to come to a meeting held in the studio to discuss something company related (We're going public!  One of our co-workers from corporate office is promoted, etc.) when it could have just been sent in an email.  Meanwhile, people really avoided these meetings to the point we were being bribed to come by the management offering attendees a raffle ticket and if your number was drawn you'd win a prize (which was a worthless  tchotchke that the promotions department wanted to get rid of).

[Annber03]

I had two meetings at work today, one a team meeting and the other being a one-on-one thing. The team meeting, as is often the case, had me wondering why I even needed to be there, since none of what was discussed had to do with my work, and the one-on-one meeting was so short to where it felt kind of pointless, especially since I have to walk down a hall and through another part of the clinic to get to my boss' office for the meeting. There's other reasons I'm not wild about the one-on-one meetings, but that's a whole other topic. 

And all of this was going on in a day that was already pretty hectic between people coming in to drop off forms for me to complete and people calling me about their forms or having questions about other topics, and on top of all of that my boss wanted me to shadow the girl working the front desk this afternoon for a time. Had I not had to go to those meetings I might not have felt so rushed this afternoon trying to take care of everything else. 

[RealHousewife]

Most of my Teams meetings are pointless. 

[Cloud9Shopper]

The worst ones at my old job after a while were daily stand ups. After some time they eventually were overtaken by social talk more than work talk and they felt pointless. And they were only scheduled for 15 minutes but sometimes they dragged on and on….if these are supposed to be short meetings then maybe we should keep them that way? 

[SuprSuprElevated]

6 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

Most of my Teams meetings are pointless. 

Fixed.

[chocolatine]

6 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

The worst ones at my old job after a while were daily stand ups. After some time they eventually were overtaken by social talk more than work talk and they felt pointless. And they were only scheduled for 15 minutes but sometimes they dragged on and on….if these are supposed to be short meetings then maybe we should keep them that way? 

Yes, the purpose of a stand-up is to be a quick update on the status of the team's projects. It's done standing up so that people don't get too comfortable and prolong the conversation unnecessarily.

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 hour ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

7 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

Most of my Teams meetings are pointless. 

Fixed.

I guess I’ll be the outlier and disagree. The meetings that I do attend are necessary. Of course the meetings aren’t every week in the matters that I help out on. But I do have a weekly lunch meeting for my group, where new and existing matters are discussed, as well as any updates.

Maybe it depends on the industry. 🤷‍♀️

[SuprSuprElevated]

2 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I guess I’ll be the outlier and disagree. The meetings that I do attend are necessary. Of course the meetings aren’t every week in the matters that I help out on. But I do have a weekly lunch meeting for my group, where new and existing matters are discussed, as well as any updates.

Maybe it depends on the industry. 🤷‍♀️

Why it says "most".

[Blergh]

On 9/1/2022 at 6:20 PM, chocolatine said:

Yes, the purpose of a stand-up is to be a quick update on the status of the team's projects. It's done standing up so that people don't get too comfortable and prolong the conversation unnecessarily.

If ONLY! While my current position has regular meetings that are concise and usually wrap up quickly, I can think of some past positions in which that was NOT the case.

In one past position, the 'stand up meetings' consisted of the big cheese insisting that ALL entries/exits to our area were sealed tight with NO ONE allowed to pass in or out, THEN the big cheese would spend sometimes up to 45 or more minutes ranting- with no one else allowed to  verbally respond to said rants and even nodding one's head could risk it getting bitten off ('Don't just nod your head !' - like how else were we supposed to react if we couldn't even speak in our own defense?). Oh, and if anyone breached on entry or phoned the department during the 'stand up meeting', everyone was supposed to freeze with the person answering the phone or closest to the entry doing their best to get the other person off the line and/or out of the room ASAP so the big cheese could CONTINUE ranting uninterrupted without witnesses- claiming it was out of 'respect' for us (yeah, just like abusers stop out of 'respect' for their victims- when a  witness happens by). Well, I made sure to stand the WHOLE time just so the big cheese wouldn't get the satisfaction of thinking that I was just going take it sitting down!

Thankfully, that big cheese is long gone and I'm no longer in that position but the stand up meetings there aren't what I look back upon in that time or place with undiluted sentiment.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Blergh

[SuprSuprElevated]

Filed under:  HR Nightmares

man-reveals-he-learned-he-was-denied-job-after-he-was-accidentally-cc-d

[Bookish Jen]

10 minutes ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

Filed under:  HR Nightmares

man-reveals-he-learned-he-was-denied-job-after-he-was-accidentally-cc-d

Interviewing has turned to shit now that HR is involved. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Bookish Jen

[magicdog]

Well, good news on the work front!  You may remember I mentioned that one of our anchors was pregnant and was due to give birth in September.  We had an office pool (I lost!) but the little one (a boy!) was born 3:30am Sunday morning.  Kid has interesting timing since his mother used to get up at that hour to anchor the morning newscast!

The anchor was on maternity leave of sorts (she co-anchored for about 3 weeks from home like during the pandemic) and then announced she'd be off on full leave last week.  

[Bookish Jen]

I just realized 22 people have quit or left since I started over a year ago.

[Cloud9Shopper]

Had a crazy busy week at work, but sitting in the recruiting seat sure is entertaining at times…let’s see…

Had a couple of people who didn’t get picked for on campus interviews (law student interviewing process for summer jobs) try to interview through our website. We know you applied through the school and didn’t get picked for an interview; we can see you. 😂

Received an application packet today with a cover letter addressed to the entirely wrong firm and hiring manager.

Got an email the other day from someone clearly mass applying to firms because he had another firm CCed on the email to us.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in zero position to offer resume and job search advice since I’ve been doing this for a whopping month, but…if I could offer anything at all…no you do not need to apply through every channel possible and also, make sure you don’t have the totally wrong firm copied or mentioned when talking to us at Acme Law when you wanted ABC Law instead. 

[Sweedish Fish]

Hello, I know I haven't been posting but reading the threads.  I wish you good luck,

I think I got it today.

I have been a mess since my program was defunded with the government.  I found out two weeks ago. 

Since then I have been still teleworking but sending out resumes like mad. 

Had and intervew today that was just fantastic.  I have all the skills that that were looking for.

I have one more telephone call at 10 tomorrow, with a mechainical engineer.   I am just a draftsman. 

Going to get the job, I know it.  I feel it.  My current job ends on Friday, along with many others.

OMG I a freaked.  But happy freaked.  I can do it

[SuprSuprElevated]

2 hours ago, Sweedish Fish said:

Hello, I know I haven't been posting but reading the threads.  I wish you good luck,

I think I got it today.

I have been a mess since my program was defunded with the government.  I found out two weeks ago. 

Since then I have been still teleworking but sending out resumes like mad. 

Had and intervew today that was just fantastic.  I have all the skills that that were looking for.

I have one more telephone call at 10 tomorrow, with a mechainical engineer.   I am just a draftsman. 

Going to get the job, I know it.  I feel it.  My current job ends on Friday, along with many others.

OMG I a freaked.  But happy freaked.  I can do it

Best of luck to you!

[Bookish Jen]

I did something on behalf of my co-worker while she was on vacay even though it wasn't my project. Now she has dumped the project onto my lap, and I have to take care of it. I'm really pissed. But there is no use standing up for myself. I'll just be seen as difficult.

[magicdog]

48 minutes ago, Bookish Jen said:

I did something on behalf of my co-worker while she was on vacay even though it wasn't my project. Now she has dumped the project onto my lap, and I have to take care of it. I'm really pissed.

I'm pissed on your behalf!  That's a rotten thing to do.  No good deed goes unpunished.  However if you want, I could send some poop to her.....

I got a funny anecdote from the office this week.  I noticed an email was in my box from people I didn't recognize.  It seems that a girl named,  "Alyssa" who works at our Amarillo affiliate accidentally sent the email to the intended recipients along with every newsroom in the Gray Broadcasting family!!  That would be about 114 newsrooms from coast to coast!  Alyssa was looking for an SD card (which holds video from modern digital cameras) which was missing from the news room.  It had video of a "sod poodle" on it and was important.  Overnight, I heard dings in my email box responding to her question.  Many were quite amusing:

What's a sod poodle?***

It's not here.  Hi from Michigan!

I have 15K doughnuts for anyone who brings it to the newsroom in KC!

The News Director leaves the building for 5 minutes and all hell breaks loose!

Hope it's not in Vegas!  If it is, it's not likely coming back.  Whatever happens in Vegas...stays in Vegas!

We have an affiliate in Vegas?

Not at the SC office!  Good luck!

Not here in Phoenix.  Too much dust anyway!

Naturally, there were a few killjoys in the bunch, mostly whining that we're taking up all the space by sending every response out to every newsroom.  It was a one time thing though and I know I'm not the only one to laugh.

I hope Alyssa doesn't get in trouble.  She obviously didn't mean to do what she did, and it was a simple mistake to make (maybe she was new).  She hit the "newsroom all" link for contacts, when she obviously only wanted to email everyone in the Amarillo newsroom.

**** What is a sod poodle you ask?

Spoiler

It's  a prairie dog!

[Bookish Jen]

magicdog, thanks for being pissed on my behalf. She also left early today right after lunch. 

And we got our yearly evaluations this week. I was told I've done okay, but I need development. No mention of a raise, not even a cost of living increase. 

I'm also starting to wonder if I'll even be needed a year from now. Things are going to slow down in my department due to losing clients and losing key funding. I think the writing is on the wall.

[RealHousewife]

My supervisor is a nice guy and very laidback, but I have coworkers who complain about him no matter what he does. One coworker complained about our supervisor chatting with him too much. They’ll mock him for “being too old” to listen to the music he does. Another one complained about our supervisor asking him about his leaving early every day without using leave time, and another complained about his poor evaluation for his poor performance working remotely. Do they want a supervisor who just stays in his office all day, doesn’t make a peep, and lets everyone do whatever the heck they want? 

I’m the first to vent about an asshole boss, but I hate when I hear people being so mean about someone who doesn’t deserve it. 

[Bookish Jen]

25 minutes ago, RealHousewife said:

My supervisor is a nice guy and very laidback, but I have coworkers who complain about him no matter what he does. One coworker complained about our supervisor chatting with him too much. They’ll mock him for “being too old” to listen to the music he does. Another one complained about our supervisor asking him about his leaving early every day without using leave time, and another complained about his poor evaluation for his poor performance working remotely. Do they want a supervisor who just stays in his office all day, doesn’t make a peep, and lets everyone do whatever the heck they want? 

I’m the first to vent about an asshole boss, but I hate when I hear people being so mean about someone who doesn’t deserve it. 

That sucks. I seems no matter what somebody does (manager or not) they get criticized.

[magicdog]

29 minutes ago, RealHousewife said:

My supervisor is a nice guy and very laidback, but I have coworkers who complain about him no matter what he does. One coworker complained about our supervisor chatting with him too much. They’ll mock him for “being too old” to listen to the music he does. Another one complained about our supervisor asking him about his leaving early every day without using leave time, and another complained about his poor evaluation for his poor performance working remotely. Do they want a supervisor who just stays in his office all day, doesn’t make a peep, and lets everyone do whatever the heck they want? 

I’m the first to vent about an asshole boss, but I hate when I hear people being so mean about someone who doesn’t deserve it. 

Sounds to me like a cabal!  Like they're gunning for him to get shoved out so one of them can take over the position.  Why else be so petty?  

If you lose your job @Bookish Jen, please send the poop to that ingrate!  

[chocolatine]

42 minutes ago, Bookish Jen said:

I'm also starting to wonder if I'll even be needed a year from now. Things are going to slow down in my department due to losing clients and losing key funding. I think the writing is on the wall.

It does sound like it. Start updating your resume and quietly looking for other opportunities - if you're too obvious about it, your current employer may "question your commitment" and let you go before you've got another job lined up.

[Bookish Jen]

6 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

It does sound like it. Start updating your resume and quietly looking for other opportunities - if you're too obvious about it, your current employer may "question your commitment" and let you go before you've got another job lined up.

I did take a look at my resume and did some proofreading and added my latest job. I just need to make it more cohesive. And I'm going to put my feelers out.

[RealHousewife]

26 minutes ago, Bookish Jen said:

That sucks. I seems no matter what somebody does (manager or not) they get criticized.

Yup. 

20 minutes ago, magicdog said:

Sounds to me like a cabal!  Like they're gunning for him to get shoved out so one of them can take over the position.  Why else be so petty?  

If you lose your job @Bookish Jen, please send the poop to that ingrate!  

Yeah I definitely sense some jealousy. One of the guys was pissed when he lost out on the supervisor position. 

[Bookish Jen]

I'm sitting here trying to hold back my tears. I just can't take it anymore.

[Jane Tuesday]

I've been there, @Bookish Jen. Do you have anyone you can lean on? A friend, a mentor, a therapist? Does your employer have an EAP? If not, your primary care physician can refer you to a therapist, or some non-profits offer services.

I'm not saying you "need" a therapist, (not that it's wrong if you do)! I just know sometimes it's easier for me to open up to a "stranger", and they can give you a different perspective from those who are close to you.

I'm so sorry you're going through such a rough time. 

[Bookish Jen]

29 minutes ago, Jane Tuesday said:

I've been there, @Bookish Jen. Do you have anyone you can lean on? A friend, a mentor, a therapist? Does your employer have an EAP? If not, your primary care physician can refer you to a therapist, or some non-profits offer services.

I'm not saying you "need" a therapist, (not that it's wrong if you do)! I just know sometimes it's easier for me to open up to a "stranger", and they can give you a different perspective from those who are close to you.

I'm so sorry you're going through such a rough time. 

Thanks for your kind words. I did speak with a friend yesterday and she was really supportive. I don't know if my company has an EAP program. 

[Bookish Jen]

Well, it looks like my co-worker's project is now mine. 

[magicdog]

Send the poop!!  

[Cloud9Shopper]

I’m trying to get a side gig to make some extra money and pay down debt, and even that feels impossible these days. Even grocery stores and bookstores are requiring HR interviews and then second interviews with store managers, or they have to pass on your availability. Not to mention even the grocery store asks “Why do you want to work here?” I thought these places were all desperate to hire? 

I work at a law firm and got hired there after one interview, but making coffee and ringing up groceries requires multiple interviews and “tell me about a time when…” grilling. 

[JTMacc99]

My best guess, using experience as a customer and other stories I've heard, is that retail establishments aren't having a hard time hiring people. They're having a hard time hiring people who will actually come to work. 

[isalicat]

38 minutes ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

I thought these places were all desperate to hire? 

I would try smaller businesses (ones that are too small for an HR department) and be super up front (with references ready to hand over) about that this is a side gig and you are highly motivated, incredibly dependable, etc. etc. - pour it on when you apply, hopefully directly to the business owner.

Another possibility would be a contract-based on line job that you can do from home on the weekends or whenever...something like proofreading....or a skill you already use at your current job that you could also do part time.

[Cloud9Shopper]

16 minutes ago, isalicat said:

I would try smaller businesses (ones that are too small for an HR department) and be super up front (with references ready to hand over) about that this is a side gig and you are highly motivated, incredibly dependable, etc. etc. - pour it on when you apply, hopefully directly to the business owner.

Another possibility would be a contract-based on line job that you can do from home on the weekends or whenever...something like proofreading....or a skill you already use at your current job that you could also do part time.

Thanks for the suggestion. I am open to small businesses too (I’ll try some others) and went into one place but never got a call. I just switched to recruiting coordination, so not really opportunities to do that on evenings and weekends. I do enjoy the job so far, though, and wish I had opportunities to build HR skills outside of full time day job hours. 

[Annber03]

4 hours ago, JTMacc99 said:

My best guess, using experience as a customer and other stories I've heard, is that retail establishments aren't having a hard time hiring people. They're having a hard time hiring people who will actually come to work. 

That, and they're probably having a hard time hiring people because, "Hey, want to come work at a place where you'll have to deal with rude and annoying customers while getting paid minimum wage and getting only part-time hours so that the company can avoid giving you any benefits?" just isn't that great a selling point for a lot of people. 

[Bookish Jen]

13 hours ago, Annber03 said:

That, and they're probably having a hard time hiring people because, "Hey, want to come work at a place where you'll have to deal with rude and annoying customers while getting paid minimum wage and getting only part-time hours so that the company can avoid giving you any benefits?" just isn't that great a selling point for a lot of people. 

I worked a seasonal job at Kohl's during the pandemic in 2020, and even though this is a major corporation, the pay was pathetic and I got very little hours-15 a week tops.

[Cloud9Shopper]

So I’m close to two months into my job now, and while I still enjoy it, I have to admit that being on the other side of the hiring process can be hard. Right now, we’re trying to schedule multiple interviews because we’re looking for summer associates (law students who work with a firm for summer work experience) and this requires a volunteer to do a whole day of interviews with students from one of the law schools and then from that we take a couple of the best for callbacks. Between all the emails to candidates, finding volunteer interviewers, setting up Zooms, making sure all the applications are organized…it’s exhausting. I don’t think I’ll ever again wonder why recruiters and hiring managers don’t return every email and phone call. I do make every effort to do so but I only have so many hours of work. And because we have so many strong candidates we ended up taking on more interviews and extending our interview period. 

We have had a few candidates drop to other offers, which is fine, but then that means we start all over again with the next person/people on our list. 

I actually do like the job and am learning a lot. Probably would have gone to law school if not for the massive debt load and life of misery for many attorneys. (At my first firm, the attorneys basically said they would not tell anyone to go to law school unless they were absolutely sure that this was the only thing they wanted.) But I will be thrilled when this period is over and I can dive deeper into other things and not be chasing so many people down every day. 

Edited September 23, 2022 by Cloud9Shopper

[Bookish Jen]

Egad, some people are as petty AF. We have team that is moving to a new section of our office. The team manager asked another manager if they could switch offices so they could be closer to their respective teams. The other manager is refusing even though it will work out better for both teams. Ugh.

[Sweedish Fish]

I hope this is ok to post here.   I accepted the job offer with glee.  It was time for the backround check and drug screening.   Backround check came back great.

Now as far as the drug screening - I am so so anxious.  Marijuana is legal in my state and I smoked for medical reasons 3 weeks ago.  I have been drinking water like mad.

The job includes Federal contracts.

Waiting on the results.  Took a home test and it was negative.    

PS - I am not a druggie!

[SuprSuprElevated]

1 hour ago, Sweedish Fish said:

I hope this is ok to post here.   I accepted the job offer with glee.  It was time for the backround check and drug screening.   Backround check came back great.

Now as far as the drug screening - I am so so anxious.  Marijuana is legal in my state and I smoked for medical reasons 3 weeks ago.  I have been drinking water like mad.

The job includes Federal contracts.

Waiting on the results.  Took a home test and it was negative.    

PS - I am not a druggie!

Best of luck to you!  Curious - did the application process ask about any drugs/substances you may be/have taken?  

[Sweedish Fish]

45 minutes ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

Best of luck to you!  Curious - did the application process ask about any drugs/substances you may be/have taken?  

Nope.  I'm sure I am panicking for no reason.  The screening place did not even ask what kind of medication that I was on.

I was worried about the backround check too - even thou I never even had a parking ticket.

[SuprSuprElevated]

5 hours ago, Sweedish Fish said:

I was worried about the backround check too - even thou I never even had a parking ticket.

Like I frequently had to remind my mother, a chronic worrier, don't borrow trouble.  You'll be fine. 😉