With 10 being the most – how inappropriate would it be to lecture a department director on the use of “thx” as a closing statement in a company email?
If you haven’t already noticed, I absolutely HATE the use of “text” language in a professional environment. Seriously. Its like nails on a chalkboard to me.
A few weeks ago, I wrote on Evy's blog about a problem I was having at work in regards to breast pumping. Well, I finally heard back about my concern and was told:
A) The lounge is rarely used (um, if it was rarely used this wouldn't be a
problem and yet it is so…What does that tell you about the "rarely
used" lounge?)
B) I can't use a conference room because they are used for meetings and it might cause an awkward situation for "all parties involved".
C) I can use a bathroom (apparently, my comment about how unsanitary it was – not to mention difficult given the lack of table even if there is a chair – fell on deaf ears).
D) I can use the women's locker room which is in another building, is chair-less & table-less (because they have a bench) & lacks electrical outlets near any seating.
Last but not least, it was implied that management had more important issues to solve and that it was "my problem" to find a solution for.
I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. I usually don't complain about my employer because they really go above and beyond most times but in this instance I feel I'm getting the short end of the stick. I tried to solve "my problem" by using a conference room that I'd scheduled, but I was shot down. I tried suggesting that our lounge be a scheduled resource, but was also shot down. Furthermore, if a conference room is occupied (and we have indicators outside of the door to notify people) why are people going into the room anyhow?
Why is this such a big deal to people? I don't care who sees me expressing breast milk, why do others care? Its not as though I strip from my neck to my waist and then sit on top of the table in the center of the room using a boat horn. It's all very discrete and can be made even more discrete if it was such an issue about "public decency".
I'm not really sure where to go from here. I'm not sure if I want to make it more of an issue, and pursue it with my Union rep or perhaps even make it a legal matter – or if I want to just continue to use a conference room on the off times that the lounge isn't available. So frustrating given the fact that this is a requirement for me. I wish that people wouldn't just think, "Oh, well she's choosing to do this instead of formula feeding." or "She's choosing to be a working mother." No. NO. That's not fair.
What's the hardest part about your job?
Trying to overcome a communication barrier caused by uneducated users. Good example:
Today we get an email in from someone who recently had a new hard drive put into her PC. This was done because her PC was just really old and was not performing well. We get an email from this woman who says, "I recently got a new hard drive and now I don't have the internet."
Now, what I hear when someone says this is that they can open an internet browser, but they are unable to access any web pages.
But that was not the issue. The issue was that she couldn't find the desktop shortcut for the web browser. She didn't think to look under her programs – OH NO! – if its not on her desktop it doesn't exist.
So that is the hardest part of my job. Deciphering what they mean in relation to how I would refer to it.
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This morning has been hectic at work. Its frustrating that because I answer the phone for our support group 99% of the time that I'm responsible for doing all the leg work and following up on stuff that shouldn't even really be handled by our department. I get stuck playing the middle-man and no one wants to call each other they just want me to do it. Someone will call with an issue and then they assume that because they spoke with me I'm the only one that does everything. Nope, sorry – there's a team of about 30 people that deals with everything in our company. Oh well, job security I suppose.
We had a meeting awhile back with the whole support team because they wanted me to act as more than just an "answering service" which I'm in complete support of. How the hell am I supposed to grow in my position if I'm always stuck doing the grunt work? But at the same time the suggestions that I put into the pot were never acted on. Great help that meeting was. I'm still stuck saying, "I can't help you with that directly but I can route this request to someone who can." I know that people on the other side are just asking themselves silently, "What can you help me with directly?" I feel useless sometimes.
But enough of "woe is me" in regards to my job. I love my job. I love having a job. That reminds me, why are the State workers in California bitching SO MUCH about this? At least you still HAVE a job. How about we do this: Let's round up all the workers who can't accept that this is what has to happen and line them up against the non-workers who are desperate for a job right now. I think that'd sober up whoever is forgetting that this is necessary for them to keep working AT ALL. No one is safe, be glad that its only two days a month and not four days a month or your job in general. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be angry – I'm just saying get over it and stop acting like this is the end of your working career. Its two days.
I'm so sick of people calling me and not A) Introducing themselves and simply launching into their confusing question that they probably could have figured out on their own if they hadn't panicked and then B) Wondering why I ask them, "Who am I speaking to?"
I don't care that we both have caller ID – this is a place of business and have some frakn' etiquette and simply start with, "Hi this is Jane." I mean geez, where are your manners? There's one caller in particular that I really just want to give the sharp side of my tongue to – but how would I do that and not create another enemy in that men-driven department where all the women despise others with breasts?
I'm bushed.
I volunteered to assist with training for our new phone system – we're rolling out new phones with the system because we're switching from your traditional landlines to VoIP. I thought that since I'd have to support those phones it might be best for me to become a near expert on them and nothing makes you an expert more than training, right?
Its all going okay, I just wish I would have been more involved in the setup. For one thing, I requested early on to have the training material given to myself and the other trainer so we could review them and have detailed questions once we went through the training. However, we got the training material along with all the other users AT THE TRAINING so we really were given no upper hand (and yet we're supposed to be the experts?) and no time to ask questions and get clarification. That bothered me – I blame it on the company we're purchasing the phones and therefore the training from.
Plus, OUR training was two days before the training we were supposed to provide so we weren't given a lot of time to brainstorm and prepare how we wanted to present the information. We were working all day yesterday in just trying to better organize the training WE were given and that included changing the training material and also the method since we'd be training by demonstrating but we were trained hands on. At the end of my day I still stayed an extra two and a half hours so that I could script out everything. It paid off though because I was prepared – but still.
I learned a lot from doing the training for our Intranet project and I wish I could have passed my expertise on. Case in point: We were told it would only take an hour to train basic users on the phones – so all TWENTY of our training sessions were set up for an hour (I had no say in this, or I would have told them to stop being so optimistic of our users and to pad the hour with a half hour). However, after taking the training ourselves and seeing the training material – we realize that we should have scheduled at least an hour and half. So again I'm being told "you're going to fast" because we're trying to squeeze so much information into a single hour – and we're still going over that hour by about half.
We've gone through two of the twenty sessions and it was very fast paced and I'm frustrated that yet again I'm having to rush when I train. I actually really enjoy training, I have a lot of patience for answering questions and I love to demonstrate. I just wish I could train on my terms which would mean first and foremost plenty of time. We had to amend the training pamphlets again after today, but hopefully that'll just make it easier for tomorrow.
As I said, I'm bushed.
I'm bored, but I don't want to work 
I'm wired from all the sugar & caffeine I've had so early and I have no where to expel that energy other than at work which is boring.
I'm dreading a 4 hour meeting I have this afternoon – watching it loom closer and closer. The only reason we need four hours is because we're trying to do the run-through of the training for the project I'm working on and they keep interrupting me. I can't even get through an entire section of my outline before I'm stopped and our trains of thoughts collide and somehow we end up talking about topics completely unrelated to work. It seems to worry them that I'm not working off of a script – and I'm worried they're going to be interrupting me so much during the live training that no one will learn anything. Have they no faith?!
I'm getting my hair done tonight. Its been approximately four weeks and you can see my roots but not too badly. I mainly would just like the color to be as dark as it once was. I'm tempted to ask her to go a shade darker this time, but my sister says that the light color looks wonderful. It might be darker this time no matter what I do considering it's a darker shade to begin with. I'm also going to get my hair cut – but by a different person on a different day as I can't afford to color and cut at this salon with their prices. I like the length – but when I put curlers in, the longer bits in the back do nothing and simple silently rebel against my best efforts.
Last night I went to Ikea with my sister and her friend. We got lost going there even though I've been there a million times. With the gas prices as terrible as they are, I was cringing to see the miles traveled climb as we had to backtrack. I bought this wall rod and four of these hanging cups – though I'm not really sure where I'm going to put them. I'd like to use them in the kitchen but we don't have any free wall space that wide. I think I might put glue magnets to the wall connectors and put it on the side of the refrigerator instead. Pretty good idea, eh?!
Thank God its Friday.
Yesterday was pretty rotten at work – so far as it was very stressful and we had to back pedal and give into silly demands and I'm not happy about it all. The worst part is that I took that out on a co-worker of mine and I felt really bad about it. The good thing is that I apologized and she accepted and we're on good terms again. I'm hoping that today is going to be better!
I'm finding that I'm really not using Twitter that much and may cancel my account. The updates page is too overwhelming in the fact that it's just random thoughts with next to no explanation – and a ton of them. My thoughts are hardly ever one sentence thoughts – which I think Twitter is intended for. Plus no one seems interested in what I'm doing so…
Last night my sister and I finally finished watching the Battlestar mini-series (I'd seen it before numerous times, my sister has never been able to finish it though) and she loved it 
I'm happy because I really like the show and I love to share stuff like that with my sister. I lent her the first season and also season 2.0 – because I remember what a cliffhanger the end if the first season was and I know she'd go crazy! Watching the mini-series has really rekindled my passion to finish the 3rd season which we'd almost done before we went to Scotland.
Today is Thursday and I'm frakin' glad. If only it were Friday!
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