Special K doesn't like surprises. For instance, if you approach her desk at a normal pace and politely ask, "Hi Special K, could I please get some postage for this letter?," she likes to jump mid-air and look at you as though you've pulled a gun on her. Fortunately, her aversion to shocks like this mean that she is hypersensitive to possible threats to our safety and sense of calm in the workplace.
We have a yearly fire alarm test that is carried out by our alarm company. Not a huge deal, but they do sound the alarms a few times to make sure everything is working. Now, in most places of employment I would imagine that employees are, indeed, warned. But perhaps not as well as we are:
To all Staff:
I was contacted by Bob Smith of SG Alarms on Wednesday (7/29/09) afternoon. He kindly alerted me that two gentlemen (Kevin and another person) will be testing our fire alarm system first thing Thursday morning, 7/30/09 (per our contract). I wanted to give everyone a “heads-up” – so that you will not be surprised when you see people walking around our building or hear odd noises on occasion for an hour or so. Please let me know if you have any concerns (L: I believe that I have previously mentioned this testing to you). Thank you for your attention and cooperation.
With best wishes,
Sincerely,
Special K
However, this leaves so many questions unanswered. Who is this "another person"? What do Kevin and "another person" look like? How will I distinguish them from the 6 people who work in the office? Is a "heads-up" the same as a heads-up? What constitutes "odd"? Will these noises be frightening? She has my attention, but I am not certain my fear is assuaged.
Showing posts with label retard virus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retard virus. Show all posts
Monday, September 27, 2010
So, there's been a bit of a hiatus
As you may have noticed, we haven't posted in a while. Part of it was that in spite of how frequently Special K gives us material, it sometimes ceases to be funny and begins to elicit only rage.
Part of it was that, tragically, we lost S from the office. Seriously, I can't begin to describe how much she is missed here.
Anyway, with S gone, and Special K being Special K, L and I were left to periodically vent to one another, which doesn't have quite the same appeal. Although we had been advised by some lawyer-y acquaintances that having this blog up for the world to see wasn't the smartest move, I have decided that I don't care. Enough of this wallowing. It's time for Special K to be in your lives once again.
Part of it was that, tragically, we lost S from the office. Seriously, I can't begin to describe how much she is missed here.
Anyway, with S gone, and Special K being Special K, L and I were left to periodically vent to one another, which doesn't have quite the same appeal. Although we had been advised by some lawyer-y acquaintances that having this blog up for the world to see wasn't the smartest move, I have decided that I don't care. Enough of this wallowing. It's time for Special K to be in your lives once again.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Speaking of things things that are here, then just go away and sometimes (please, dear god) come back again...
First off, I have to admit that I am still cold and cranky and probably will be until at least April or so. I am probably allowing my bitterness over the premature end of fall to impact my extreme hostility towards Special K at the moment.
I am the big spender in the company. I rack up hundreds of thousands of charges without batting an eyelash--EXCEPT that the boss lady is a penny-pincher, and thus I scrutinze every invoice that crosses my desk, knowing that if I don't she'll call me out on it later. Raw material costs went up since you created an estimate for us 4 years ago? She doesn't care, she thinks that we should be invoiced exactly what you quoted in 2003. The cost of fuel has gone up and therefore affected shipping charges? Well, it just so happens that we don't acknowledge fuel surcharges here, so can you please delete that line item? It's retarded. But I am used to retarded around here.
So on Monday I was doing my oh-so-favorite task of reviewing and coding invoices to pass along to our accountant, including one with a couple of charges that were actually the responsibility of a partnering institution. So I carefully marked up one copy of the original invoice for accountant, telling her exactly what to pay, and exactly what amount of foreign currency to order a check for in order to settle the bill. The other copy of the invoice was to be submitted with our payment, so again, I carefully marked it up to show the subtraction of the contested charges.
Our accountant ordered a check in foreign currency, then carefully explained to Special K that when it arrived, she was to:
1) make a photocopy of the check for her records
2) give the check and the marked-up invoice to me
This shouldn't require explanation, we do it very frequently and have for years, but we know what we're dealing with here...
The check arrived when I was at lunch, and Special K dutifully photocopied the check, and left the original (AND a copy of the purchase order for which I have utterly no use) on my chair. But no coded invoice. I thought perhaps our Accountant had forgotten to give Special K the invoice, so I went up to her office and explained that I really needed that copy back to send with the check, since it was critical to understanding why we were submitting payment for less than the full amount of the invoice. Seh said that K had been instructed to return it to me, and sent me back to Special K, who first claimed to have given it to the Accountant, then claimed to have given it to me, then shrugged and said it had just mysteriously disappeared.
I have actually asked her to call the foreign currency check issuer to see if she might have somehow handed it off to their courier (which would not be surprising--although I would expect her to randomly hand off odd pieces of our mail with it). So far that has turned up nothing. I also requested that she go through the various "files" on her desk (not really files, per se, as they have absolutely no order other than being an assortment of colored folders into which she inserts papers in an entirely random fashion). I even told her to look through her trash, since I have seen her sitting in her chair for long periods over the past few days and randomly tossing papers into her bin--I am quite certain that she is probably tossing critical financial records, and holding on to old annual leave requests from 1996. But alas, no luck.
I guess it's time to give up and request another from the issuer of the invoice, but as we all know around here, the second I do, the one I have been seeking will probably mysteriously appear on my coworker's chair. Grr.
I am the big spender in the company. I rack up hundreds of thousands of charges without batting an eyelash--EXCEPT that the boss lady is a penny-pincher, and thus I scrutinze every invoice that crosses my desk, knowing that if I don't she'll call me out on it later. Raw material costs went up since you created an estimate for us 4 years ago? She doesn't care, she thinks that we should be invoiced exactly what you quoted in 2003. The cost of fuel has gone up and therefore affected shipping charges? Well, it just so happens that we don't acknowledge fuel surcharges here, so can you please delete that line item? It's retarded. But I am used to retarded around here.
So on Monday I was doing my oh-so-favorite task of reviewing and coding invoices to pass along to our accountant, including one with a couple of charges that were actually the responsibility of a partnering institution. So I carefully marked up one copy of the original invoice for accountant, telling her exactly what to pay, and exactly what amount of foreign currency to order a check for in order to settle the bill. The other copy of the invoice was to be submitted with our payment, so again, I carefully marked it up to show the subtraction of the contested charges.
Our accountant ordered a check in foreign currency, then carefully explained to Special K that when it arrived, she was to:
1) make a photocopy of the check for her records
2) give the check and the marked-up invoice to me
This shouldn't require explanation, we do it very frequently and have for years, but we know what we're dealing with here...
The check arrived when I was at lunch, and Special K dutifully photocopied the check, and left the original (AND a copy of the purchase order for which I have utterly no use) on my chair. But no coded invoice. I thought perhaps our Accountant had forgotten to give Special K the invoice, so I went up to her office and explained that I really needed that copy back to send with the check, since it was critical to understanding why we were submitting payment for less than the full amount of the invoice. Seh said that K had been instructed to return it to me, and sent me back to Special K, who first claimed to have given it to the Accountant, then claimed to have given it to me, then shrugged and said it had just mysteriously disappeared.
I have actually asked her to call the foreign currency check issuer to see if she might have somehow handed it off to their courier (which would not be surprising--although I would expect her to randomly hand off odd pieces of our mail with it). So far that has turned up nothing. I also requested that she go through the various "files" on her desk (not really files, per se, as they have absolutely no order other than being an assortment of colored folders into which she inserts papers in an entirely random fashion). I even told her to look through her trash, since I have seen her sitting in her chair for long periods over the past few days and randomly tossing papers into her bin--I am quite certain that she is probably tossing critical financial records, and holding on to old annual leave requests from 1996. But alas, no luck.
I guess it's time to give up and request another from the issuer of the invoice, but as we all know around here, the second I do, the one I have been seeking will probably mysteriously appear on my coworker's chair. Grr.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The heat is supposably working
In many offices, the office manager would be aware of things like "there's water dripping through the ceiling," "our security cameras don't seem to be working" and "damn, it's downright arctic in here since the heat won't come on." Not Special K. It took having Awesome Accountant coming in and mentioning "Special K, it's pretty cold in here, have you turned the heat on?" for her to say "My, but is IS cold" and scurry off to figure out whether the fact that it's been about 65 degrees may have something to do with our heating system.
Numerous phone calls and several days later, she finally managed to get "our" heating guy in yesterday. And yes, we request the same representative of the company each time because apparently if we don't, it's like "trying to reinvent the wheel" (this according to The Boss Lady, not Special K, as Special K hasn't figured out wheels yet). So "our" heating guy came in and (according to Special K) determined that--like last year--birds somehow destroyed it? Somehow this seems treatable, and like something you might think to monitor, or at least think of when the heat fails to turn on for the second year in a row. Instead I imagine her sitting outside watching flocks flying into our vents and saying "ooooh, birdies!" while clapping her hands.
So "our" heating guy returned with an assistant today. They fiddled around, and things seemed to be working upstairs, at least. However, this also happened to be a morning where we had a large shipment leaving the building, which necessitated leaving the exterior doors open for several hours. It's about 45 degrees outside, with 45 mph gusts. The end result? It's freezing. Inside. Like 57 degrees cold (ok, that isn't freezing but I am from a warm climate, deal with it). Not cool.
However, when I asked Special K about it this afternoon, long after the truck departed and the lack of heat was quite, quite clear, she announced that "supposably" they fixed everything. Oh really? Is this why it says it's 57 degrees downstairs? And my fingernails are purple? And despite the fact that I have gone scavaging for abandoned sweaters and odd articles of clothing to layer upon myself, I still cannot feel my extremities?
Then Special K admits that she wouldn't let them really test the downstairs heat control, so she didn't know for sure whether it was working. This is where I get really frustrated. For the past several months, I have had a temperature-sensitive consignment stored in our building. Thus I very, very clearly explained to Special K that the temperature MUST remain between 68-72 AT ALL TIMES. I made a post-it and stuck it to the thermostat, lest she forget. I was impressed that she seemed to be handling it well, even going so far as to leave a large, hastily scrawled note for our cleaning person to let her know not to adjust it.
But alas, Special K didn't QUITE grasp the whole memo. In her mind, the temperature could not go above 72. Somehow realizing that it must also stay ABOVE 68 degrees was entirely too much for her to take in. Thus she warned "our" heating guy not to touch my thermostat for the downstairs temperature control. I told her that I put it on 80 degrees and "ON" rather than auto, and no fan had come on. So she called the company and they announced that "our" guy couldn't come back until tomorrow. Then she came down to check for herself, standing in the adjacent warehouse and waving her little hands around in the cold air to see if maybe she'd catch a draft of warmth and be able to claim the heat was working. During this special little heat dance, I went upstairs and told The Boss Lady that it was freezing, I was miserable, the shipment I had been storing was made vulnerable to the TOO COLD temps that Special K couldn't seem to acknowledge. So I got permission to have Special K call the company and announce that this situation was dire, and called for extreme measures--we could have someone besides "our" guy return.
The phone rang a moment later, and Special K went scurrying past me and suddenly a great blast of warm air started surrounding my office. When I asked her what had happened, she explained that the assistant to "our" guy--the one who was fishing for dead birds in our building's vents--had turned off the downstairs "system" this morning. And despite the fact that the whole point of their service call had been to turn the heat on for us, he didn't think to flip the switch before leaving.
Part of me is so grateful for this newfound warmth that I want to hug Special K. The other part of me wants to slap her for spreading her stupidity to "our" heating guy's assistant. Seriously, in the spread of the retard virus, another one bites the dust.
Numerous phone calls and several days later, she finally managed to get "our" heating guy in yesterday. And yes, we request the same representative of the company each time because apparently if we don't, it's like "trying to reinvent the wheel" (this according to The Boss Lady, not Special K, as Special K hasn't figured out wheels yet). So "our" heating guy came in and (according to Special K) determined that--like last year--birds somehow destroyed it? Somehow this seems treatable, and like something you might think to monitor, or at least think of when the heat fails to turn on for the second year in a row. Instead I imagine her sitting outside watching flocks flying into our vents and saying "ooooh, birdies!" while clapping her hands.
So "our" heating guy returned with an assistant today. They fiddled around, and things seemed to be working upstairs, at least. However, this also happened to be a morning where we had a large shipment leaving the building, which necessitated leaving the exterior doors open for several hours. It's about 45 degrees outside, with 45 mph gusts. The end result? It's freezing. Inside. Like 57 degrees cold (ok, that isn't freezing but I am from a warm climate, deal with it). Not cool.
However, when I asked Special K about it this afternoon, long after the truck departed and the lack of heat was quite, quite clear, she announced that "supposably" they fixed everything. Oh really? Is this why it says it's 57 degrees downstairs? And my fingernails are purple? And despite the fact that I have gone scavaging for abandoned sweaters and odd articles of clothing to layer upon myself, I still cannot feel my extremities?
Then Special K admits that she wouldn't let them really test the downstairs heat control, so she didn't know for sure whether it was working. This is where I get really frustrated. For the past several months, I have had a temperature-sensitive consignment stored in our building. Thus I very, very clearly explained to Special K that the temperature MUST remain between 68-72 AT ALL TIMES. I made a post-it and stuck it to the thermostat, lest she forget. I was impressed that she seemed to be handling it well, even going so far as to leave a large, hastily scrawled note for our cleaning person to let her know not to adjust it.
But alas, Special K didn't QUITE grasp the whole memo. In her mind, the temperature could not go above 72. Somehow realizing that it must also stay ABOVE 68 degrees was entirely too much for her to take in. Thus she warned "our" heating guy not to touch my thermostat for the downstairs temperature control. I told her that I put it on 80 degrees and "ON" rather than auto, and no fan had come on. So she called the company and they announced that "our" guy couldn't come back until tomorrow. Then she came down to check for herself, standing in the adjacent warehouse and waving her little hands around in the cold air to see if maybe she'd catch a draft of warmth and be able to claim the heat was working. During this special little heat dance, I went upstairs and told The Boss Lady that it was freezing, I was miserable, the shipment I had been storing was made vulnerable to the TOO COLD temps that Special K couldn't seem to acknowledge. So I got permission to have Special K call the company and announce that this situation was dire, and called for extreme measures--we could have someone besides "our" guy return.
The phone rang a moment later, and Special K went scurrying past me and suddenly a great blast of warm air started surrounding my office. When I asked her what had happened, she explained that the assistant to "our" guy--the one who was fishing for dead birds in our building's vents--had turned off the downstairs "system" this morning. And despite the fact that the whole point of their service call had been to turn the heat on for us, he didn't think to flip the switch before leaving.
Part of me is so grateful for this newfound warmth that I want to hug Special K. The other part of me wants to slap her for spreading her stupidity to "our" heating guy's assistant. Seriously, in the spread of the retard virus, another one bites the dust.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Incorrectly-typed email addresses haunt S.
“Someone” here recently sent out a mass internal email that included several incorrectly-spelled and very often-used staff email address. We all know the Special K does not know or have saved anywhere the email addresses of the 5-7 staff members here-- see previous post by L --but let me clarify this recent small snafu by noting it wasn't the staff names that were misspelled here - it was our company name portion of the addresses.
I have to ask yet again: a) why are our internal addresses not saved in contacts? There's not a whole hell of a lot of them, they follow an standard, easily-comprehended format, and are used by each of us about a billion times a day?, and b) why don’t the correct addresses just automatically pop up for her when the name is typed?… that requires no effort. Negative effort in fact. Outlook takes the work away from you. I'm going to speculate here Special K doesn’t trust The Machine and therefore simply refuses to allow it to complete an email address. That's so Special K.
Now here’s my problem, when this affects me. Since I did a respond all to these incorrect emails, they are now all saved and pop up when I compose an email to these staff members, whom I, again, email about a billion times a day. Since just their names, and not the addresses , pop up – I have to guess each time which ones is the correct one – with about 50% shot at a bounce back, re-send, start the fun over. Yes, this comes off as minute, and it is in the grand scheme of everything that is stupid here, but when my work day consists of frantically shooting emails left and right, having a 50% bounce back (and even having to check the accuracy of the email addresses as I send them) is a real bitch. (For the record, I investigated Outlook help to correct this, and after several minutes of searching unsuccessfully, I got mad and frustrated that I had to do this and gave up.)
And back up here: if the incorrectly-spelled email address is coming up as “Person's Name” and not the incorrectly spelled-out email address, does that mean the Special K actually has it saved wrong? Is it more baffling that she would know how to save a Contact?
It feels like my trusty steed of a computer caught her retard virus, and is now functioning at a remedial level.
I have to ask yet again: a) why are our internal addresses not saved in contacts? There's not a whole hell of a lot of them, they follow an standard, easily-comprehended format, and are used by each of us about a billion times a day?, and b) why don’t the correct addresses just automatically pop up for her when the name is typed?… that requires no effort. Negative effort in fact. Outlook takes the work away from you. I'm going to speculate here Special K doesn’t trust The Machine and therefore simply refuses to allow it to complete an email address. That's so Special K.
Now here’s my problem, when this affects me. Since I did a respond all to these incorrect emails, they are now all saved and pop up when I compose an email to these staff members, whom I, again, email about a billion times a day. Since just their names, and not the addresses , pop up – I have to guess each time which ones is the correct one – with about 50% shot at a bounce back, re-send, start the fun over. Yes, this comes off as minute, and it is in the grand scheme of everything that is stupid here, but when my work day consists of frantically shooting emails left and right, having a 50% bounce back (and even having to check the accuracy of the email addresses as I send them) is a real bitch. (For the record, I investigated Outlook help to correct this, and after several minutes of searching unsuccessfully, I got mad and frustrated that I had to do this and gave up.)
And back up here: if the incorrectly-spelled email address is coming up as “Person's Name” and not the incorrectly spelled-out email address, does that mean the Special K actually has it saved wrong? Is it more baffling that she would know how to save a Contact?
It feels like my trusty steed of a computer caught her retard virus, and is now functioning at a remedial level.
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