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September 08, 2006
Managerial Whoa's
6:30 AM, Walking in the door
Employee 1 From T Department: Rob, what are we supposed to do with these phones?
Rob: What phones?
E1FTD: These phones. (Points to shiny new black phone sitting on his desk)
Rob: (Raising his brow, a mix of bewilderment and humor dominating his facial features) You know more than I do at this point, buddy. Let me clock in first.
Rob gets back to his desk to discover another new shiny black phone sitting on his desk. Fascinating. This should make for an interesting morning, yeah? Great way to begin the cap for the week. Well, the macro's not working for the spreadsheet that pulls up the orders to be done today, so Rob sits down to manually put it together. Over a hundred today. Great. Two trainees in that department, and an inundation of update requests. "I can manage it," thinks Rob. Of course, he has to, it's his job description. Rob is...
THE MANAGER
The two trainees are ready to fly solo, though, so breaking the orders up, it will only be twenty four a piece for the four old-timers, and a handful of easy ones for the trainees. That will please the rabble.
6:45 AM, Chaos has already been unleashed
The shiny new black phones are beginning to remind Rob of some sort of Lovecraftian Tentacled Beast of Doom. This is not a good thing. The genius in the IT Department (a department that Rob is just POSITIVE had its first two letters dropped off) just dropped off the Lovecraftian Tentacled Beasts of Doom, and didn't find himself arsed to actually set the fuckers up. Swell. Rob's people are starting to file in. They're coming in early, because Thursday was a busy day and they want to get their work caught up. Good little drones. Except, and here's the rub, they have to use phones to do their jobs. They don't have phones anymore. They have Lovecraftian Tentacled Beasts of Doom.
Crisis mode. Rob is starting to feel alive for the first time in the day. He calls the Help Desk. He thinks, most of the time, it should be called the No Help Desk. Luckily, this is an off day, and an actual helpful person picks up the line.
Rob: I need these phones set up.
Actual Helpful Person: What phones?
Rob: The new phones that your genius didn't set up.
Actual Helpful Person: New phones?
Rob: New phones. Don't work. Rob smash.
AHP: Please don't smash the new phones, Rob.
Rob: Rob angry. Rob smash.
AHP: We just need to put some software on the computers.
Rob: How this make puny phones work?
AHP: Trust me.
"Okay, so these phones are kinda cool," thinks Rob. He doesn't tell the Help Desk clerk that, of course. That would be giving them ground, and Rob can't do that. But, now half an hour's been killed getting the new phones set up. The extra lead time to make up for the prior day has been soundly vanquished. Rob goes to buy a muffin. Blueberry. Mmmm. Warm.
7:30AM, Rob tries to eat his muffin
Rob gets a call from his employee in Ohio. She doesn't have a phone yet, she tells him. Obviously, she is telepathically submitting this message to Rob. You go, girl. Rob is beginning to sorely detest the Phone Guy. The Phone Guy is Rob's bane in existence. Rob puts Phone Situation Number Two on his list. Rob decides to make one person from T Department responsible for all email requests. The workflow is instantly sped up by this decision.
Employee 2 From T Department: Are you going to send us our list, Rob?
Rob: GET OFF MY BACK, I'M TRYING TO EAT MY FUCKING MUFFIN!
E2FTD: Eat your fucking muffin after you send us the list, please.
Rob likes E2FTD. He's going to promote her next week, he decides. Good ol' gal. Rob finishes up the list and shoots it off to E2FTD, and then sets in to eat his muffin. Rob's boss pokes his head into Rob's office, as the muffin is about half consumed. "Girl in Ohio no phone. T Department fucked by phone guy too. Puny spreadsheet still no work. Rob want muffin. Argh." Rob's boss smiles and walks back out. Rob likes his boss, he lets Rob do things Rob's way. Rob finishes his muffin.
8:00AM, the rest of the employees arrive
E2FTD alerts Rob to the fact that the two new employees have defective worksheets. Another macro that doesn't want to work. Rob thinks they should be called micro's. Rob has to call the president of the company to come down and fix them. Why does Rob have to do this? Because the --IT department can't be arsed to, of course. Rob decides this will also be a good time to corner the Prez over some Accounts Payable situations that have arisen in the last two hours, in between crises. Rob and the Prez both decide that they have no idea how to fix the AP problem, but the Prez does fix up the two new computers. The crowd rejoiced. Yay.
Rob greets the rest of his employees. He makes a point to walk from desk to desk every morning and talk with each person about how they are doing. One's son quit his job. One's planning to go salsa dancing tonight. One got a new dog. One just nods and says he's doing fine. One is excited for a concert next week. One may come play poker at Rob's friend's house on Saturday. One didn't do much last night. One did a whole lot last night.
A compatriot from a sister company stops by to talk with Rob about XML. Rob knows a little bit more than the average man about XML, but not, alas, enough to help the compatriot. During this discussion, Rob's computer crashes, losing the report he was putting together. Oh, bother.
Somewhere along the line, Rob enters a time warp and it is all of a sudden a quarter to eleven. Rob goes to talk to the Accounting Department about the AP problem. Rob comes out of that talk even more confused. It shouldn't be this hard to print fucking checks. Rob is now hungry. Cheesey potatoes and broccoli. Weight Watchers brand, because Rob is trying to regain his girlish figure.
Rob pencils a page of his graphic novel during his lunch break. Said lunch break is only disturbed twice by minor emergencies.
The afternoon, of course, is quite dead. Rob mostly walks around, seeing if anyone needs help. They don't. It's a helpless situation. Rob decides to type up a story in third person about his day.
Posted by Schamberger at September 8, 2006 02:34 PM