Considering retirement in the very near future, I thought I'd share a few of the things I've heard and seen over the last couple of years that just drive me crazy - all at work, except for the last.
I work for a small environmental consulting firm - with 20 or so employees. We have a VP who's job description appears to be to make us as much like big government as possible. (Just as a sidenote, "Ralph" is one of those guys who does very little real work, but is always buddying up to the brass and making sure they know the improvements he's bringing to the company). Here is a list of 5 events that make the exit option seem like the most reasonable:
1) I am in charge of the IT side of our business. We had a computer shut down one day (our mail server) where email was not available for about 2 hours. About 20 minutes after we found that the email was not working, we got a call from "Ralph". He wanted to know the situation. It was explained to him that it appeared to be a very minor issue, and would be resolved shortly. After we were advised that any downtime is unacceptable, he said that we needed to do a "root cause analysis". The meetings that followed far outlived the supposed crisis.
2) One day, during a staff meeting, we were presented with the new business plan. Right near the top, one statement became obvious: "We are going to become the Coca-Cola of the environmental consulting business". A company of 20 employees?
3) We were advised that the company was going to settle on a formal, official font policy. Thats right, if you use Times New Roman, you are directly violating company policy...
4) During a staff meeting, we got the following the question: "If you have 2 horses that can pull 9000 pounds, how many pounds can 4 horses pull?" Well, we're all scratching our heads, and being engineers and such, figure maybe its 18000 pounds? Nope... "30,000 pounds, because the horses are using synergy"...
5) Lastly, I took my nephew (about to enter college) to my old alma matter - Metro State here in Denver. I guess it wasn't surprising to see that its not just Harvard and Berkely suffering political correctness. As we were walking across the campus, we ran across a sign that read "Service animal rest station". I had no idea what that meant, until I saw a picture below the sign of a dog on a leash. Then I noticed the plastic bag dispenser above. It was then that I burst out laughing. Maybe it should have read "dog crap area"?
What the hell?
I work for a small environmental consulting firm - with 20 or so employees. We have a VP who's job description appears to be to make us as much like big government as possible. (Just as a sidenote, "Ralph" is one of those guys who does very little real work, but is always buddying up to the brass and making sure they know the improvements he's bringing to the company). Here is a list of 5 events that make the exit option seem like the most reasonable:
1) I am in charge of the IT side of our business. We had a computer shut down one day (our mail server) where email was not available for about 2 hours. About 20 minutes after we found that the email was not working, we got a call from "Ralph". He wanted to know the situation. It was explained to him that it appeared to be a very minor issue, and would be resolved shortly. After we were advised that any downtime is unacceptable, he said that we needed to do a "root cause analysis". The meetings that followed far outlived the supposed crisis.
2) One day, during a staff meeting, we were presented with the new business plan. Right near the top, one statement became obvious: "We are going to become the Coca-Cola of the environmental consulting business". A company of 20 employees?
3) We were advised that the company was going to settle on a formal, official font policy. Thats right, if you use Times New Roman, you are directly violating company policy...
4) During a staff meeting, we got the following the question: "If you have 2 horses that can pull 9000 pounds, how many pounds can 4 horses pull?" Well, we're all scratching our heads, and being engineers and such, figure maybe its 18000 pounds? Nope... "30,000 pounds, because the horses are using synergy"...
5) Lastly, I took my nephew (about to enter college) to my old alma matter - Metro State here in Denver. I guess it wasn't surprising to see that its not just Harvard and Berkely suffering political correctness. As we were walking across the campus, we ran across a sign that read "Service animal rest station". I had no idea what that meant, until I saw a picture below the sign of a dog on a leash. Then I noticed the plastic bag dispenser above. It was then that I burst out laughing. Maybe it should have read "dog crap area"?
What the hell?