Office Pro Tips

[ChuckF]

I’m almost at the two week point in my new office job, which is my first in a large institutional setting. Though I’m still learning my way around the bureaucracy and making the contacts necessary to get things done, I’m finding that there’s very little actual work, which is fine. I suspect that they’ve hired me only because they don’t want to lose the position in next year’s budget, so there’s a quiet mutual recognition that my job is not really necessary.

Anyway, while I’ve only been on the job for a little while, I’ve already learned some very useful tips for office survival. I call them ChuckF’s office pro tips, and I pass them on to you. A lot of you probably already know them, but some of you may not. Some of these are common sense, and others aren’t quite so intuitive. I also invite you to share your own pro tips with me, to accelerate my development as an office neophyte.

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #1: Always carry a folder. When you have a folder, people think you’re taking it somewhere, or bringing it from somewhere. If they ask what’s in the folder, just chuckle and say “Oh, this and that…you know” and roll your eyes knowingly. Then you’ve established a personal rapport without admitting that you’re goofing off and just happen to be carrying a folder.

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #2: Get on the purchasing listserv to find out about vendor expos. They have free stuff and free food. The reps don’t ask too many questions and hand over the goods on demand. The bigger your employer, the better and more abundant the loot.

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #3: Got a boring and long meeting? Two hours and no snacks? No problem! Show up 5-10 minutes late, and make a lot of noise as you enter. Drop something, slam a door, whatever. This is just to make everyone turn their heads and look at you, thus assuring any spies in the meeting that you did in fact attend. Look sheepish and take a seat near the door, apparently to avoid the embarrassment of further scrutiny. After 10-15 minutes, slip out, and enjoy your free 90 minutes.

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #4: Sign up for every available listserv and distribution list. This keeps your inbox nicely full and busy-looking.

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #5: Keep an eye out for training sessions focusing on skills that you already have or that you don’t really need but can justify to your superior. If you play your cards right, your database management training can easily become a 3 hour lunch.

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #6: Dress better than your colleagues. It makes you less approachable.

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #7: Be extremely polite but avoid excessive socializing with colleagues and superiors. For example, don’t go to lunch with them. This only makes you seem like a friend who is willing to do favors beyond your job description.

Now I want to hear from you other office monkeys out there. Halp!

[Ensign Steve]

Be on call for emergencies. Answering one stupid question by phone at midnight on a weekend means you don't have to do any work the rest of the week because you are the hero and obviously indispensable.

[Adam]

Be on call for emergencies. Answering one stupid question by phone at midnight on a weekend means you don't have to do any work the rest of the week because you are the hero and obviously indispensable.

This.

Handling a midnight emergency also allows you to excuse any goofing off the next day by wearing your tired face and conspicuously glancing at the pager whenever anyone talks to you.

[BrotherMan]

Scotty's Office Tip #1: When asked to estimate the time to complete a given project, make your normal assessment but then double it. You'll always look like the hero miracle worker who got a job done in half the time it should have taken.*

Actual tip taken from Chief Scott from TNG.

[biochemgirl]

How about a tip from a lab monkey? I like to spread equipment out all over the lab bench. It makes me look busier and more technical than I actually am.

That and I walk fast in the hallways and around the lab. It makes me look very busy and nobody bothers me because of how busy I must obviously be.

[BracesForImpact]

When handling a complaint, immediately proceed to do any dirty work required while in your dress office attire.

I have handled complaints about dirty toilets in the past, for example. (I'm in environmental services) I dress in a shirt and tie just about every day I'm not doing seriously dirty work. Leaning down with a toilet caddy and brush in a shirt and tie, I have actually had the former complainant plead with me to stop because I was too well dressed to do such a chore.

[ChuckF]

Now that is an interesting approach. Up until now, my current strategy for dealing with dirty work has been to quit immediately and find another job.

[Doctor X]

http://www.luminomagazine.com/2004.03/spotlight/officespace/images/lumbergh/lumbergh1.jpg

Chuck, we need to talk about your TPS (http://www.gotwavs.com/php/sounds/?id=gog&media=WAVS&type=Movies&movie=Office_Space&quote=newcoversheets.txt&file=newcoversheets.wav) reports. . . .

--J.D. (http://www.gotwavs.com/php/sounds/?id=gog&media=WAVS&type=Movies&movie=Office_Space&quote=mmyeah.txt&file=mmyeah.wav)

[Qingdai]

Learn to do some mildly irritating thing very well. So well that every one else refuses to do it, then do nothing but that at a very, very slow place. They will leave you alone.

I learned that while working for medicare. Everyone else had to answer phones at a break neck pace. I entered in cards as slowly as I wanted to, taking time to chuckle over the poor handwriting, name choices and grammar.

[Adam]

Ignore everything that goddamm paperclip tells you.

[Qingdai]

Oh yeah, that.

Also the fast walking thing works very well.

[erimir]

Qing, that just goes to show how inefficient gov't bureaucracy is, for we know that such slackery would never be tolerated in a private business!

Also, getting assigned a project in the basement where nobody almost ever goes is a pretty good way to avoid having to come in on time, or having to work too hard. Downside was that it was cold and there were no windows. I figured I was owed the occasional break to read in repayment.

[Qingdai]

Honey, You'd think so, but I worked for a private company that contracted with medicare and medicaid.
HAH! Goes to show you how having a private company doing a public job is also inefficient and wasteful!

I wonder if Bechtel is hiring?

[Ensign Steve]

Also, getting assigned a project in the basement where nobody almost ever goes is a pretty good way to avoid having to come in on time, or having to work too hard.

Same applies to working odd shifts, like evenings or weekends, assuming not a lot of other people do. Downside to that, though, is after a while you can go a little nutty, a la Jack Torrance. :twitch:

[erimir]

Honey, You'd think so, but I worked for a private company that contracted with medicare and medicaid.
HAH! Goes to show you how having a private company doing a public job is also inefficient and wasteful!That was precisely my point, since I actually meant the opposite of what I said! :drevil:

[mickthinks]

MickT's Office Pro Tip #1: Get a job doing something valuable that you care about.

[ChuckF]

I tried but it's hard to get a job causing social damage on the internets. Especially in today's economy :sadcheer:

Well, I guess I kind of did, since I do that on the clock.

[mickthinks]

OMG thats so funneh...

[ChuckF]

An' I got paid fer it!
:spend:

[mickthinks]

A professional narcissist?

[ChuckF]

:narciss: Sorry, what? Was busy earning a living.

Anywho, these tips are golden, esp. the one about the basement and learning to do undesirable but low-intensity tasks.

ChuckF's Office Pro Tip #8: Learn to control the ringer volume on your phone. If possible, mute it entirely. Then monitor your caller ID to send undesirables to voice mail for screening. If anybody ever calls you on it, say it was that damn sales rep from Xerox/OfficeMax/Dunder Mifflin trying to sell you things.

[ChuckF]

dup poast

[slimshady2357]

Learn key commands, they are your friends.

For instance, pressing alt-tab switches between active windows. I tend to keep my left hand on the keyboard at all times, withe my thumb on the left alt key and my baby finger on the tab key. This allows me to instantly switch from reading :ff: to a work window. The advantage is that you don't have to hurridly reach for the mouse as someone walks up, you just calmly tap alt-tab.

Now, of course, if you have 5 different IE windows open you might just end up switching to Ebay, which is no good. So try to remember to keep your work window as the second window. In an emergency you can use the windows key + m to minimize all windows at once and go to your desktop.

[ChuckF]

Whoa, I did not know that. Windoze key + m ftw.

[curses]

Sandy's protip - if you have a breakroom and have the ability to store stuff in the fridge, buy the cheap stuff as everyone else is going to use it. Or you can hide it in your desk if it's non-perishable.

Alternatively you can eat out every day, but that's a bit hard on the wallet sometimes.

[Farren]

A wierd one that's worked for me before. A little unexpected honesty goes a long way, as long as you don't overdo it.

For instance, I once phoned my boss in the morning and had the following conversation

"I thought about making up a fake illness but I'm a terrible liar, so I have to admit that I drank most of a bottle of Jack Daniels last night and am so hung over that I am incapable of performing any useful work"

"...Thank you Farren... naturally I'm not pleased about your irresponsible behaviour but I do appreciate the honesty"

I swear, the next day he actually acted like he was impressed. The bonus here is that he was more likely to believe me when I did claim illness.

Similarly:

"Before you get a call from our panic stricken client - I was working remotely on the client's Linux server last night and somehow changed the file system, with the effect of instantly clearing the hard drive. Also, I can't find the backup drive I was supposed to bring back from their offices for secure storage last week"

We had a few surprisingly frank conversations like that over 5 years and the overwhelming impression was that he thought it indicated strength of character.

In fact, after I left and started working for myself he contracted out work to me on a regular basis, leaving the client entirely in my hands from specification phase through to invoicing (I'd just inform his accounts people how much they had to bill client and pay me).

I suppose the return on that kind of behaviour does depend on what kind of boss you have.

[Farren]

When you're not going to make a software development deadline (and honesty is only going to earn you pain) don't argue, obfuscate, plead personal problems or avoid calls. Create dependencies. A lot of software development life cycles have enough noise in them to create confusion about who is actually responsible for the missed deadline.

[on realising that you won't make the deadline]

Example 1: "Can you send me an export [in specific format x] of last year's sales transactions so that we can begin stress testing of the Blah module and ensure its ready for the live environment?"

Example 2: "I've put up an interface prototype for the short-listing module on our Citrix box. Could you play with it and revert with any changes you might want so I can complete the back end?" For extra noise (and time) mess with the firewall so that they get wierd errors, fix it when they complain, then say "I've sorted out the problem with our service provider".

[Adam]

Yah, what Farren said. It helps to have a mental list of potential dependencies ready to go at all times.

[ChuckF]

Now you guys are talking above my pay grade, but I like what I'm reading.

[Doctor X]

If you are in America occasionally toss in British pronunciations. Not affect a British accent, just the pronunciation.

This wisdom was given to me. As the person described, say "shhedule" rather than "skedule" for "schedule."

I blew that off until I received a phone call from a consultant. She was screaming at me because we would not do what she suggested. She basically did not understand the problem, was a bit of a thicky, and we were rejecting her ideas--she ended up being wrong.

Be that as it may, I was not in the mood to explain all of that. So I responded calmly:

"There are iss-uus that need to be ree-solved."

There was a pause.

"WHAT?!"

I replied, "there are iss-uus that need to be ree-solved."

Another pause.

"Oh! Okay!" she replied cheerfully and hung up.

She never bothered us again.

Use sparingly.

--J.D.

[Adam]

Learn key commands, they are your friends.

For instance, pressing alt-tab switches between active windows.

In conjunction with this, Excel is your friend. We keep configuration info for a lot of our systems in Excel sheets for reference, and I always keep an Excel window open, with one of those sheets up that I can quickly tab over to. It's hard to tell what a person staring at a sheet full of obscure numbers is actually doing, but goshdarnit, they're doin' something important, you betcha!

[ChuckF]

At my previous office jobs, in small offices, problems didn't resolve themselves. They required active intervention, and there was usually no question about who was responsible. I'm finding that within this large bureaucracy, there exists a subset of quotidian problems that tend to reach resolution with no overt evidence of active involvement by any party. I'm not sure how it happens, it must be some kind of organizational magic. I need to learn to identify these particular problems before trying to tackle them.

But I guess that's kind of the holy grail, huh.

[mickthinks]

Now you guys are talking above my pay grade, but I like what I'm reading.
* Chuck sets about boosting his social capital with a display of charming false modesty.
LOL

[ChuckF]

Uh, yeah, that.

[Adam]

Hey, Chuck, where do I send this social check I owe you for that last post?

[ChuckF]

Send it to my social bullion mine, I'll send a boy to collect it and put it with the others.
:pipe:

[mickthinks]

Damn, Chuckie - you care so much that you respond to everything. Universal concern must be so wearying!

[Farren]

If you are in America occasionally toss in British pronunciations. Not affect a British accent, just the pronunciation.

This wisdom was given to me. As the person described, say "shhedule" rather than "skedule" for "schedule."

I blew that off until I received a phone call from a consultant. She was screaming at me because we would not do what she suggested. She basically did not understand the problem, was a bit of a thicky, and we were rejecting her ideas--she ended up being wrong.

Be that as it may, I was not in the mood to explain all of that. So I responded calmly:

"There are iss-uus that need to be ree-solved."

There was a pause.

"WHAT?!"

I replied, "there are iss-uus that need to be ree-solved."

Another pause.

"Oh! Okay!" she replied cheerfully and hung up.

She never bothered us again.

Use sparingly.

--J.D.

Americans say "Skedule"? Does your entire dialect consist of the most phonetic reading of words possible?

I recently read a Bill Bryson book where he examined the US' many unique contributions to the English language. I loled at how many of them arose from the verbifying of nouns and other lazy speaking habits, like "notify" arising out of "send or give someone a note".

[ChuckF]

Damn, Chuckie - you care so much that you respond to everything. Universal concern must be so wearying!
Dude, I'm at work. wtf else do I have to do? Also Stevie Wonder lyrics.

[Doctor X]

Oddly enough, the American preserves some of the correct pronunciations.

"Prioritize" is another lazy "verbification"--perfectly cromulent word.

--J.D.

[slimshady2357]

Learn key commands, they are your friends.

For instance, pressing alt-tab switches between active windows.

In conjunction with this, Excel is your friend. We keep configuration info for a lot of our systems in Excel sheets for reference, and I always keep an Excel window open, with one of those sheets up that I can quickly tab over to. It's hard to tell what a person staring at a sheet full of obscure numbers is actually doing, but goshdarnit, they're doin' something important, you betcha!

E-mail is also useful in this regard. Keep an open e-mail 'reply' at all times, ready to use.

If you're tryping a post on :ff: and someone starts walking over, just alt-tab to the e-mail 'reply' window and keep typing. From their perspective you never stop typing, never shift the mouse and so you must have been e-mailing the whole time.

It's extra useful to have some work related stuff in the e-mail 'reply' window already, so that if they glance at what you are typing they can see that it's a reply to so-and-so about job XYZ.

[mickthinks]

Damn, Chuckie - you care so much that you respond to everything. Universal concern must be so wearying!
Dude, I'm at work. wtf else do I have to do? Also Stevie Wonder lyrics.
There you go again - it's just care, care, care with you all the time.

[ChuckF]

Sandy's protip - if you have a breakroom and have the ability to store stuff in the fridge, buy the cheap stuff as everyone else is going to use it. Or you can hide it in your desk if it's non-perishable.

Alternatively you can eat out every day, but that's a bit hard on the wallet sometimes.
So there is a fridge here, but I'm kind of afraid to use it. Not because of the food piracy issue, but because of the sanitation issue. I have no idea if anybody cleans it; those containers in the back with the badly faded labels are not encouraging.

[Ensign Steve]

Nobody cleans it.

[livius drusus]

Take any solo projects offered, no matter how crappy or hard the job may seem. People will leave you the fug alone and traditional office hours will have no hold on you. It will be the single most enjoyable time you spend in the office, guaranteed.

[curses]

Nobody cleans it.
This.

Or..if you're lucky, some offices do contain an "office mom". Basically it's someone who cleans the counter, microwave, fridge, and coffeemaker and bitches about it the whole time. We have one of those. She still doesn't stop those thieving bastards from using everything that isn't glued down to the shelf.

[Adam]

Take any solo projects offered, no matter how crappy or hard the job may seem. People will leave you the fug alone and traditional office hours will have no hold on you. It will be the single most enjoyable time you spend in the office, guaranteed.

Oh, hell yes. I so miss being the heads down development guy on our source management project a couple years back. Into the office at nine for 3-4 hours of requirement and status meetings, home by one at the latest, play with the cats for a while, TV on, work at the coffee table until dinner, play video games for a couple hours, put in a few more hours of work, bed, repeat. I was doing 12 hour days for like three months, but it was the best three working months of my life, since 8 of those hours were on my own schedule, with license to ignore calls and emails from everyone but my PM.

[ChuckF]

Nobody cleans it.
This.

Or..if you're lucky, some offices do contain an "office mom". Basically it's someone who cleans the counter, microwave, fridge, and coffeemaker and bitches about it the whole time. We have one of those. She still doesn't stop those thieving bastards from using everything that isn't glued down to the shelf.
I don't think we have an office mom (we may and I just haven't been around long enough to find out), but we do have an office crone. She is old, old as the stones, and has worked here since god was young. She doesn't do any work, as far as anyone can tell, but her power is immense. Though she doesn't use e-mail, her knowledge spans across departments and buildings, and she can accomplish in a single phone call what would take mortal men days. She is constantly beset by foolish people, and will share these stories with passersby. But beware, lest ye become one of these self-same fools.

I'm terrified to ask her for anything until I have appropriate offerings.

[Ymir's blood]

If having problems with people taking/using/eating your stuff, add a little extra to it to make them think twice in the future. Just be sure to remember what's adulterated and what isn't.

http://www.uthscsa.edu/mission/winter96/exlax2.gif

[curses]

Also, a candy bowl on your desk makes you a very popular person until you run out of candy. Use it wisely.

[Crumb]

Learn key commands, they are your friends.

For instance, pressing alt-tab switches between active windows. I tend to keep my left hand on the keyboard at all times, withe my thumb on the left alt key and my baby finger on the tab key. This allows me to instantly switch from reading :ff: to a work window. The advantage is that you don't have to hurridly reach for the mouse as someone walks up, you just calmly tap alt-tab.

Now, of course, if you have 5 different IE windows open you might just end up switching to Ebay, which is no good. So try to remember to keep your work window as the second window. In an emergency you can use the windows key + m to minimize all windows at once and go to your desktop.

Oh and along these lines I find that using a different browser for non-work related internet activities keeps bookmarks, saved passwords, cache, cookies etc all separate for work non-work activities. I do web app testing so if I have to clear cache, cookies etc for work related stuff I don't have to clear the non work stuff.

Also I solve the alt+tab to wrong window problem by using tabbed browsing for non-work related activities and only using a single window. So alt+tab will always take me to a work related window.

[ChuckF]

I'm currently going with the no candy provided model, which immediately makes me slightly unpopular with students because my predecessor followed an all candy all the time regiment. A student recently protested over the lack of free chocolate in the office, but I've decided to use my month or so where I can get by with things because I'm new to break the candy cycle.

[curses]

Oh, and it's possible to keep coworkers who are loud while on the phone quiet for awhile by "plugging" their phone cord into the data jack. No signal, but it's plugged in.

[ChuckF]

:giggle:

[Ymir's blood]

Oh, and it's possible to keep coworkers who are loud while on the phone quiet for awhile by "plugging" their phone cord into the data jack. No signal, but it's plugged in.
Not really the same thing, but it's fun to put clear plastic tape over the switch on the phone. The phone rings and they pick up the handset, but there's no one there... :ghostdance:

[Garnet]

When you're not going to make a software development deadline (and honesty is only going to earn you pain) don't argue, obfuscate, plead personal problems or avoid calls. Create dependencies. A lot of software development life cycles have enough noise in them to create confusion about who is actually responsible for the missed deadline.

[on realising that you won't make the deadline]

Example 1: "Can you send me an export [in specific format x] of last year's sales transactions so that we can begin stress testing of the Blah module and ensure its ready for the live environment?"

Example 2: "I've put up an interface prototype for the short-listing module on our Citrix box. Could you play with it and revert with any changes you might want so I can complete the back end?" For extra noise (and time) mess with the firewall so that they get wierd errors, fix it when they complain, then say "I've sorted out the problem with our service provider".

Short version of this tip:

If you can't blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

[Farren]

Also, a candy bowl on your desk makes you a very popular person until you run out of candy. Use it wisely.

There is an ultra-organised client-services guy in my office who never runs out of candy.

[BrotherMan]

:sugarhi:

[erimir]

Damn, Chuckie - you care so much that you respond to everything. Universal concern must be so wearying!Have you ever considered removing, or perhaps vibrating, the stick in your butt? Either would probably improve your disposition.

Time for another off-topic linguistics post...
Americans say "Skedule"?Actually it's skeh-jool. Even worse!
Does your entire dialect consist of the most phonetic reading of words possible?The sh comes from French, the sk comes from going back to the Greek (via Latin) sources. Going back to the Latin to "fix" Frenchified words is a fine tradition in English, responsible for giving us such bullshit as the b's in debt and doubt, the p in receipt, the s in island (which isn't from a Latin word in the first place), etc. It's also responsible for changing the pronunciation of a number of words, such as "advance" and "admiral" from earlier English forms "avaunce" and "amiral". Both of which are also bad Latin! "Advance" originally from Latin "abbante", and "admiral" from Arabic "amir al ___" (commander of ___). Basically what I'm saying is that the English used to be both against French pronunciations and bad at etymology. Interestingly, it's the Brits who supposedly hate the French who are most adamant about maintaining French spellings in English words nowadays. So anywho, Online Etymology Dictionary claims that the American pronunciation is based on Webster, who based it on the Greek pronunciation... After which we subsequently decided to coalesce the d and yod sounds into a j sound just to spite him and his "historical accuracy" (not that the yod was ever in the original Greek or Latin anyway...).
I recently read a Bill Bryson book where he examined the US' many unique contributions to the English language. I loled at how many of them arose from the verbifying of nouns and other lazy speaking habits, like "notify" arising out of "send or give someone a note".Dictionary says "notify" entered English from French in the 1300s.

[ChuckF]

French retains notifier.
and "admiral" from Arabic "amir al ___" (commander of ___)
Which, IIRC, derives from the proto-Semitic ḍrka ḍrka ḍrka.

[mickthinks]

Have you ever considered removing, or perhaps vibrating, the stick in your butt?

Oh, it's like Oscar Wilde never died ...
:yup:

[viscousmemories]

Every time I see this thread title I think "Who the hell is still using Office Pro?"

[Ensign Steve]

I'm currently going with the no candy provided model, which immediately makes me slightly unpopular with students because my predecessor followed an all candy all the time regiment. A student recently protested over the lack of free chocolate in the office, but I've decided to use my month or so where I can get by with things because I'm new to break the candy cycle.

Oh, you have freeloader students? Do not let them use your stapler. Put up an 8.5 x 11 sign detailing exactly why you don't let them use your stapler, being sure to include some maths about (the number of students in the department) * (some arbitrary number of staples required per student per semester), adjust it for inflation, and be completely sarcastic and mildy unfunny. We find that shit HILARIOUS! Or maybe it's just engineering students.

[Sock Puppet]

I've decided to use my month or so where I can get by with things because I'm new
It's my first day!
:homer:

[Farren]

Dictionary says "notify" entered English from French in the 1300s.

Who are you going to believe, Bill Bryson or the dictionary?

Actually I find it curious that he got that wrong.

[ChuckF]

IOW, his wrongity curiofies you?

[Farren]

Indeed. And I'm thankful to Sockpuppet for etymologising me.

[ChuckF]

Indeed. And I'm thankful to Sockpuppet for etymologising me.
! I can't believe you didn't invite me to your funeral. :hmph:

[Garnet]

Indeed. And I'm thankful to Sockpuppet for etymologising me.

ow. :headache:

[Farren]

Indeed. And I'm thankful to Sockpuppet for etymologising me.
! I can't believe you didn't invite me to your funeral. :hmph:

LOL. Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated on account of various conflations and transformations being misunderstood. I've not yet been consigned to history, but do appear to be dead wrong on a number of fronts. And possibly rears.

[SharonDee]

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #3: Got a boring and long meeting? Two hours and no snacks? No problem! Show up 5-10 minutes late, and make a lot of noise as you enter. Drop something, slam a door, whatever. This is just to make everyone turn their heads and look at you, thus assuring any spies in the meeting that you did in fact attend. Look sheepish and take a seat near the door, apparently to avoid the embarrassment of further scrutiny. After 10-15 minutes, slip out, and enjoy your free 90 minutes.What planet do you live on where management throws a meeting and doesn't notice when people don't show up? :glare:

When I go to meetings, it's to add more crap to my to-do list or to be ganged up on because someone's favorite item on that list hasn't been done yet.

[ChuckF]

ChuckF’s Office Pro Tip #3: Got a boring and long meeting? Two hours and no snacks? No problem! Show up 5-10 minutes late, and make a lot of noise as you enter. Drop something, slam a door, whatever. This is just to make everyone turn their heads and look at you, thus assuring any spies in the meeting that you did in fact attend. Look sheepish and take a seat near the door, apparently to avoid the embarrassment of further scrutiny. After 10-15 minutes, slip out, and enjoy your free 90 minutes.What planet do you live on where management throws a meeting and doesn't notice when people don't show up? :glare:

When I go to meetings, it's to add more crap to my to-do list or to be ganged up on because someone's favorite item on that list hasn't been done yet.
Well it's like this.

My large university employer has decided to switch to a new student data management system. This is a very big deal. It will be a phased transition starting in late 2009. Every month they have meetings with administrative support-level principals from various departments, of which I am apparently one. The purpose of these meetings is twofold:

1) to provide updates on progress
2) to get input from experienced users regarding what they would like to see in the new system

Now, this is doubly pointless for me, because:

1) I will not be here when the new system is implemented, and will never have to use it
2) I have never used the old system, so I have no idea what should be in the new.

Anyway, there are like 80 people at each of these meetings. My boss doesn't really have a clear idea of what goes on there, but he just wants someone there to "represent us." As if we need representation to sit through a two hour Powerpoint that gets posted on the web an hour after the meeting. So I can just download it and then give a report on what we "talked about."

[SharonDee]

Oh, okay. I temporarily forgot that you were the new bee in the organization.

It's just that I get frustrated when seemingly so many people have meetings that are of the "just show up and listen" variety. It's like, why let work get in the way of a good meeting?

[Garnet]

80 people at what should essentially be a functional design session.....

:hb:

[Adam]

Office Pro Tip: If you need to vent about the bastards you work with and how they dumped their stupid report on you, it's probably best not to do so over company email. If you must vent over company email, it's probably best not to put a listserv address with a couple hundred members on the To line. I got this at work yesterday:

and i'm the only one working on this stupid report, it's not even my
report i supposed to be helping, but i end up doing most of it,
bastards i hate everyone

Thank You

There were two recipients, the listserv address and a woman whose last name is similar to the beginning of the listserv name. Gotta love company wide address books and auto-complete.

[ChuckF]

it's not even my report i supposed to be helping
Question from the audience: who goes to this person for help on a report?

[Ensign Steve]

Office Pro Tip: If you need to vent about the bastards you work with and how they dumped their stupid report on you, it's probably best not to do so over company email. If you must vent over company email, it's probably best not to put a listserv address with a couple hundred members on the To line. I got this at work yesterday:

and i'm the only one working on this stupid report, it's not even my
report i supposed to be helping, but i end up doing most of it,
bastards i hate everyone

Thank You

There were two recipients, the listserv address and a woman whose last name is similar to the beginning of the listserv name. Gotta love company wide address books and auto-complete.

The best way to deal with that is to "reply to all" and start a "please stop replying to all" war that eventually brings down the mail service. We used to do it all the time in the .mil and it was oodles of fun.

[ChuckF]

I'm bumping this thread in order to confirm the rumors that I have been circulating recently.

Yes, I am having an affair with my label maker. The relationship is fully consensual, and I love my label maker very much. It is the finest piece of office equipment I have ever known. I hope that this statement will end the public speculation, and my label maker and I ask that you respect our privacy.

[Qingdai]

You like the little tiny key board? Freak.

[ChuckF]

It's not the size of the keyboard, it's the functionality that you can pack into it.

[LadyShea]

Haven't read the whole thread so these may be repeats, or irrelevant now but they have served me so well and I just used them for the end of the month, so I am posting them anyway

LadyShea's Office Tip 1

Regularly follow-up on some small things that you handled easily within minutes but that someone else might have needed to look at.

"Hi boss, I am trying to close my files for the week/month/year, and didn't receive verification that item A was delivered, reviewed, approved, whatever"

This makes you look meticulous.

LadyShea's Office Tip 2

Randomly ask for advice you don't need from someone who needs to believe you are doing shit in exchange for pay.

"Hey assistant department manager? I go this tricky situation here, and really need your advice. What do you think?"

The benefits should be self evident

[Ensign Steve]

Randomly ask for advice you don't need from someone who needs to believe you are doing shit in exchange for pay.

"Hey assistant department manager? I go this tricky situation here, and really need your advice. What do you think?"

The benefits should be self evident

I don't know if it's the same thing, but I am constantly asking the editors and photographers (the users of our system) how they do xyz on the front end, so I can figure out how to code up the back end. I flatter them like, "Oh, you know this tool so much better than I do! I know how to program it, but I don't know how to use it like you do!"

[BrotherMan]

And that's when the cheesy funk music begins to play...?

[biochemgirl]

Bake cookies or other treats for your coworkers. You'd be amazed at the shit your coworkers will let you get away with if there's sugar involved.

Of course there is the issue of when they start to follow you around like a stray animal...

[JoeP]

Still baking, bcg? :stalker:

[biochemgirl]

:giggle: Yes. I made pumpkin cookies (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=614685&postcount=65). But the cookies are gone now so just you stay away. :glare:

[JoeP]

:sadcheer:

[ChuckF]

If somebody says "Laters!" every time he walks out of the office, I am within my rights to decapitate him, yes? That must be somewhere in the Geneva Conventions.

[Sock Puppet]

You have to get him designated a non-military enemy combatant first. In other words, yes, absolutely.

[Smilin]

Bake cookies or other treats for your coworkers. You'd be amazed at the shit your coworkers will let you get away with if there's sugar involved.

Of course there is the issue of when they start to follow you around like a stray animal...

I've started to routinely make a big pot of something every Friday. First there was hommade chicken-n-dumplings, the following week was homemade soup...this past Friday it was hommade beef stew. I find the rewards greatly outweigh the time and expense. :D

It's amazing......:popcorn:

[biochemgirl]

Wow, that's a really neat thing to do. Plus I think it gives more of a sense of community at work too. Oh, have you picked up any stalkers?

[Qingdai]

:scared: Are you looking for more stalkers? Joep isn't full filling his stalkerly duties?

[biochemgirl]

I'm not actively seeking them out but I have to admit he has been slacking on the stalking lately.

[Ensign Steve]

Smoking pot with your boss = job security. Let's hope so, anyway.

[JoeP]

but I have to admit he has been slacking on the stalking lately.

As far as you know! ;P

[biochemgirl]

:shiftier:

[ChuckF]

It has been 556 days since this thread was last active, and it is time for another installment in the Annals of Underemployment. I am doing a very low-impact job for the first half of the summer, and I have to say that I am enjoying it. The only thing I don't like is that I have to share a kind of communal office space, so there's no real separation between my workspace and everybody else's.

Do you guys remember the animated TV adaptation of Dilbert? Remember Loud Howard? Well Loud Howard is a woman who works in one of the offices that adjoins the common space where I work. She is so loud and her office kind of makes her loudness echo, so it fairly booms across the office. When she is bored she likes to come out of her office and be loud with her friends in the common space. We don't work together or even know each other, really, but yesterday she made a vaguely shitty remark about law students. That, combined with her loudness, is enough to compel me to passive aggression.

I will be Debbie Downer to her Loud Howard. Today she and her loud friends were talking loudly about some famous nudist in Berkeley or something, and how totally disgusting that was because, like, he probably didn't even have a good body and old people were also naked. While they were yelling I googled the guy and interrupted them to say "Oh yeah, that guy committed suicide. He had some pretty profound mental health issues. It's sad really."

lol sads

[Qingdai]

That tactic has worked wonders for me. Watch out though, now I can't seem to end a story without some one dying.

[Ensign Steve]

Loud Howard was my inspriation for asking liv for this smilie: :loud:

I think a worse office loudness is the one receptionist from Office Space. "Corporate Accounts Payable, Mina speaking. Just a moment."

[Sock Puppet]

lol Annals

[Waluigi]

I used to be in a cube farm with a gentleman who was probably somewhere on the autism spectrum. Or maybe he got hit in the head really bad at some point. I dunno.

Anyway, he used to be on the phone constantly with the insurance company arguing about who knows what. When he wasn't on the phone with them, he was on the phone discussing the house he was building (2400 sq. ft., all one floor).

He had a tendency to trap people in their cubes and rattle on endlessly about the house he was building (2400 sq. ft., all one floor), or some other inane topic. One time, the guy in the adjacent cube called my phone. When I answered, he whispered "I'm saving you" and I pretended to have a conversation until the patience parasite was gone.

One day, and we still talk about this, I got him at his own game. He was yammering on about something, and noticed the little diecast airplane I had on my desk. When he inquired, I noted that I was a private pilot, then I launched in to a very animated lecture about general aviation, pursing a pilot's license, flying, etc. I even had a poster of a Cessna instrument panel hanging on my cube wall, and proceeded to point out the navigation equipment.

After no fewer than five minutes, he slowly backed out of my cubicle with a sheepish "okay, well, have a good day". He never trapped me in my cube again. :bliss:

[Doctor X]

That tactic has worked wonders for me. Watch out though, now I can't seem to end a story without some one dying.

You have a future in day care.

--J.D.

[Ymir's blood]

That tactic has worked wonders for me. Watch out though, now I can't seem to end a story without some one dying.
Fascinatingly enough, that's how ALL stories end. :mori:

[Qingdai]

They do end like that if you go on long enough.

:caught:

[Doctor X]

They do end like that if you go on long enough.

:caught:

Many years ago a winner of the "Childrens" portion of the Edward Bulwer Lytton contest which I cannot find online that opened the adventure by listing all of "Little Tommy's" friends and family whilst announcing their various tragedies.

--J.D.

[ChuckF]

I can't keep up with Loud Howard. Last weekend was her anniversary, and she and her husband went to some fancy place where they had a kind of gumbo or something with shrimp, so I was like "Oh, it's good you went when you did, I think that oil spill has killed most of the shrimp now." But that is the only one I've been able to come up with and use in a timely way. I can never be as quick as Loud Howard is loud.

[Doctor X]

Why don't you just . . . kill them?

--J.D.

[ChuckF]

So it is my third day of work in DC. Got my own cube, shielded from natural light. My boss is traveling for two weeks and nobody even knows I'm here so I have like nothing to do. Yeah it's pretty awesome. Anyway, I got my network credentials on the first day and I was all "thanks, I got this." So I set up my own Outlook access (like a boss) and my piece on the shared drive (like a boss). This morning I needed to print summat for the first time so I was adding the printer (like a boss). The network printer name is real generic, like "PRNT04" so I searched for it and found it and added it. I didn't really pay attention to the printer properties because it was the right name and everything, so I started printing my shit. And then I got up to go get it and MY SHIT WAS NOT PRINTED.

WTF. Obviously I am not going to go get help on this because I am like a fucking boss, so I printed my shit again, but still my shit was not printed. SO I removed the printer and then added it again, less boss-like this time, and printed again. Still no shit. I had to go deeper. So I checked the properties and noticed that it was the wrong model printer. Then I checked the server and turns out I was printing to some PRNT04 in fucking Chicago. Why does this capability even exist?

[Ensign Steve]

Meanwhile, in fucking Chicago ...

Who keeps sending us all this scat pron?
:scratch:

[Sock Puppet]

The capability probably exists only because somebody doesn't want to be fucked to organize printer paths by location. Here at Kafka Inc., a particular printer server is usually only one location each, but that location could have multiple buildings. So you're still in trouble if you send your print job halfway across town, complete with a helpful banner page that lets everybody know the employee ID of the guy printing the scat pron.

[LadyShea]

Chuck, what work are you doing in DC, and what were you printing since you have no assignments? Are you wasting taxpayer money over there printing to Chicago?

Also, since you're there and all, can we request you act as proxy at rallies and marches and stuff?

[ChuckF]

Chuck, what work are you doing in DC, and what were you printing since you have no assignments? Are you wasting taxpayer money over there printing to Chicago?
I'm not working for the gummint, so I'm not wasting taxpayer dollars. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely wasting somebody's dollars, but not yours. I am working for a national non-profit that you have heard of, in a division that you have probably not heard of. It is basically international policy work, trying to help other countries do law better. (Actually it is mostly begging for grant money to do that.)

Oh yeah I was printing out an article I am supposed to edit but the author won't give me a new draft, so it's just sitting there.

Also, since you're there and all, can we request you act as proxy at rallies and marches and stuff?
Depends on the rally, depends on the march, depends on the stuff.

[LadyShea]

Well, sounds like a dream job to me...enjoy

[ChuckF]

dream job
Clearly you have not seen my paycheck.

[Doctor X]

Why do you hate Chicago?

--J.D.