Do I by any chance still work on the planet Earth?
In each job a person holds down in a lifetime there will always be quirks. How can there not be when groups of people are interacting with eachother 5 days a week, 8 hours a day? I have always tried my best to make the best out of every work situation, and if I can't I move on. I have been with the same company for over three years. Of these three years I have resided at my current division for a year now. When I made the transfer I had very high hopes. I was promised a very challenging position that would be more accounting oriented. It didn't turn out that way. I had to push and push to actually get work to do. Yes, I know that makes no sense what so ever.
Anyways, I feel like I have been employed by some sort of twilight zone. A few of the people that I work with have been acting like there has been a constant full moon. Where do I start? Well, we are going through an audit which I am sure is contributing to some of the bizare behaviors. Last week one of the auditors asked my supervisor to pull a document (I will not bore you with the details). My boss found that the new audit procedure had not been executed with this document. Hello???? Of course there would be not evidence of this new set of rules listed on this document. The transaction was initiated in June, and the new policy was not put into place until July. So my supervisor had the nerve to ask me to forge the document stating I had carried out the new audit rule. I could not believe what I was hearing. I had to take a step back and digest this obscene order from my boss. I refused to forge my name to this document, and lie about something I did not do. Why should I put my career at risk because some hot shot in upper management failed to inform us of this new procedure? I thought my boss would understand, but she actually badgered me for 5 minutes about how it was not that big of deal. I stood my ground. Is this a new rule in the work place that I was not aware of? Are employees now expected to forge and back date a document if needed?
Okay so today things got really good. I arrive at my usual start time which is 7:00 AM. Since I am the first one in our department to arrive I clear out fax and department email boxes. I also distribute emails to managers and co-workers if needed. So I spot an email that our system had generated with all of kinds of foreign programming language that looked like Greek to me. I was however able to make out what programs this message was referring to. As I scrolled down the email I saw a line of words stating "file failed to interface".
I knew what file this was, and soon realized that if this was an error it could have a serious impact on one of our clients. So just to cover my bases I forwarded the email to the VP who has a close relationship with one of the software companies I had seen mentioned in the message. I simply just stated that I guessing there might be an error, and if there was would he like me to open a help desk ticket? I did not expect any type of recognition for this, I was just looking out for our client. A few hours later I get a response from this VP copying my boss stating "This is not an error, I take care of these situations!"
Okay so maybe I do not have the programming knowledge he does, but wouldn't a member of upper management rather have an employee look out for the best interests of the department and clients instead of just ignoring something that came up out of the ordinary? I simply hit reply all to his response, copied the line of the message that stated there was an error, and said "sorry I was just trying to inform you that the message was out of the ordinary, and wanted to try and assist in anyway if there was an issue."
Of course no one responded back. No worries, I am not going to lose any sleep over this first event to occur this morning. Now to the second incident of today. (I have to now inform any men that read this, that is has to do with a female problem. You may want to stop here.) Around 1:00 PM my co-worker approaches my desk. She looked very nervous. I asked her what was wrong and she told me in a quiet voice that her monthly bill had checked in early. The poor girl was not prepared for this. Every woman I know has had this happen to them. And as a member of the female species I have to say that if an severe accident occurs you are in BIG trouble. Your clothes are stained, and all you want to do is go home and shower. Plus there is a humiliation factor involved as well. This co-worker of mine did not have the luxury of going home to shower and change as she lives 45 minutes away. As anal as my boss is about people missing work I thought for sure she would sympathize with my co-worker and have no issues with her leaving for the day. My co-worker was so ashamed of what had happened to her, and even more embarrassed to approach our boss. I was so confident that my supervisor would understand that I pushed her to go speak to her.
So my co-worker went to speak to our boss. The next thing I knew she was gone. I figured she had left for the day as I had predicted. I couldn't have been more wrong in my assumption. My poor co-worker called me and said "can I talk to (can't put my bosses name here)?"
Our supervisor was on the phone. So my co-worker said "I am just going to leave _ _ _ _ _ a message and tell her I am not coming back".
I was very confused by what she had just said to me. She then said "_ _ _ _ _ told me to go to Target and buy a new pair of pants and underwear then come back to work and I should be fine."
"Calm down, calm down!" I kept saying to myself over and over again.
I was livid that a person of the same gender who experiences the same monthly issue had even suggested such a thing. I wanted to slam my phone down and go over and strangle my boss for being so inhumane. First of all this girl is a single mother. Did our supervisor even stop to think that she may be on a tight budget? And for the love of god how could anyone pressure a poor woman in this situation to remain at work in this condition for 4 more hours? Especially the hard working reliable person my co-worker is.
To me a person going into management should never forget that they once started at the bottom. How can I continue to work for such ignorant people that have acquired super sized egos? Why would I want to perform at my best when I have lost complete respect for my so-called superiors.
Hmmmm....I wonder if any of these instances would be considered for a Dilbert file?
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