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BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon!
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Subject: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Kim C Date: 21 Mar 03 - 04:22 PM This afternoon, my boss called the office from her cell phone. She said, "I can't get my voice mail. Will you call them and see what's going on?" (Huh? What am I, a babysitter?) "Ummmm, do you not have customer service programmed into your phone?" (I do.) "Where is it?" (groan - why don't you know how to use your own equipment!) "I don't know. I've never seen your phone. Who do I need to call?" "Just call the service provider and ask them." (groan again) "Okay." I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere. I don't know anything about how her phone works. So I had to go fish out the number, and call them, and have them tell me that because I didn't have the phone in my possession, she needed to call them directly and tell them specifically what was happening. Well, duh. This is the same person who, three years ago, went to New York for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. She called the office in NASHVILLE and said, I left the parade route directions on my desk, would you fax it to me? I said, don't they have that information in the hotel lobby?!!!? Instead of sending her kid down to the lobby, she paid for a long distance phone call and a fax call. Serenity NOW! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: NicoleC Date: 21 Mar 03 - 04:29 PM Do you work for the same person as me, Kim?! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Beccy Date: 21 Mar 03 - 04:30 PM Kim- When I was still in the office-world (now home with 3 kids- one on the way) there was a man like your boss. He REFUSED to believe that the copy machine needed to warm up prior to its first use in the morning. He would stand in front of the machine (one of those huge, advertising agency, true-color, uber collator/binder/multi-tasking monsters) and swear profusely at it, kick it (not kidding) and end up leaving the room (all this in the space of 2 minutes) and drop the items on my desk with a curt "I need this STAT" as he strode away. There was a partner there who used to have me "help co-ordinate" her neglected daughter's birthday parties. "Um, okay. What I need you to do is call the clown and give him my credit card number. Call Baskin Robbins. Order a cake. Make sure they spell 'Michkaeyla" correctly. Call the hotel. Tell them I need to have a room large enough to sleep 6 10 year old girls. Call my nanny and tell her that she can't have Michkaeyal's birthday evening off- I'll need her to manage the girls at the hotel..." etc... She couldn't understand why I didn't stay on the promo track at the agency when I got pregnant for my first baby. "Surely, she said, "you know you can have it all, like me." :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Kim C Date: 21 Mar 03 - 04:32 PM Nicole, mine's the cube with the green curtain and the feng shui bells. Come see me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Sorcha Date: 21 Mar 03 - 04:38 PM LOL! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Kim C Date: 21 Mar 03 - 04:43 PM Hey, I really do have feng shui bells. I guess I better ring them and clear out the bad chi. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Sam L Date: 21 Mar 03 - 05:04 PM I work for someone who can't operate a phone book. We once stopped by their house, which we dread like death because we get sucked into the vortex of ineptitudes. It went like this. She--Oh, as long as you're here, are either of you good with electronics? Me--Yeah Aaron is! Aaron (!) Me (ha!) She--Because our cd player isn't working... Later, out in the van, Aaron explained that more than half the cds were in upside down. Another fun thing is the frequent "changing our system" campaigns of liberal reforms because our boss refuses to use any system we have. So when she screws everything up, "we need to change our system" again. In general I am a big fat liberal, but in this little world I am a staunch conservative, which is fun. I even get to complain about people being "too stupid and/or lazy" to help themselves (which you take an oath never to do when they grant the "liberal" card for you to carry). Funny you mention it, Beccy, one employee is going part time next week, because she can't imagine having children and doing the job anymore. I guess she too doesn't want to "have it all". We have formed a support group for current and ex employees, and I've talked to four of them today--two who haven't been there in more than a year. It forms a bond, somehow. It's like survivor--except you win by getting off the island. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Kim C Date: 21 Mar 03 - 05:10 PM The vortex of ineptitudes!!!! Ha!!!!! I love it!!!!!!! We were supposed to have a special event on March 14, but had to change the date to May 5, and now may have to change it again. Kinda hard to sell tickets to something when you don't even know when it's going to happen. One of the other people I support had some color transparencies she wanted copied, but we didn't have them on the server, and we don't have a color copier. I said, we can run them in regular black & white on the copy machine. She said, can't you just run them through your color printer? I said, Fran, it's a PRINTER, not a copier... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: artbrooks Date: 21 Mar 03 - 05:37 PM I get Dilbert on my PC every morning, and send it occasionally to my former boss...she gets a chuckle out of them. I especially relate to the "Evil HR Manager"...I was one. HR Manager, not especially evil. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Sam L Date: 21 Mar 03 - 06:05 PM Kim C, I got a chill in my spine at the name "Fran". I don't want to know more. I'm afraid. It could be cloning. Do you ever get the feeling there's an expectation when your employers die, you'll be buried with them, like in an egyptian tomb? I keep trying to convince college theatre people to produce Vaclav Havel's play The Memorandum. Though it was written in 63, it has a weirdly contemporary quality, and although some would classify it in the Theatre of the Absurd file, I think the office setting would make it accesible to many people. On the bright side, I get to see all the usual college fare over and over until I could walk on in any part. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: dick greenhaus Date: 21 Mar 03 - 06:17 PM The story I like concerns the secretary who arrived at the office to see her boss, clutching a thick sheaf of paper, staring helplessly at the office paper shredder. Ahe showed him how to turn it on, and how to feed the paper without causing a jam. When the job was finished, the boss said, "well I need 15 copies, and can you collate them for me? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Mar 03 - 10:52 PM I voted to put some color in the walls of our new cubicles when they were put in last year, but was voted down. They're beige. I telecommute a lot, because my cubby is next to the boss's office door, and it's a lonely place to work. No one EVER comes to visit. I'd rather work in my own space, and in my bathrobe if I feel like it. The other day I was working from home and my boss emailed to ask if I would handle getting some photos to a journal that is writing out about our library, and to include a head shot of himself. I suggested we get a new shot, and could he go over and do it that afternoon? I thought he was at the office, and he thought I was at the office as we emailed back and forth. I finally realized he was on vacation in England while I was at home in Fort Worth. Our desks in Arlington sat there empty as we worked elsewhere. Nice! (I'll get the photos next week). SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Bev and Jerry Date: 21 Mar 03 - 11:16 PM This is why we became full time folk musicians. Bev and Jerry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: GUEST Date: 21 Mar 03 - 11:17 PM WHY do you STILL work for this woman?
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Forum Lurker Date: 22 Mar 03 - 10:24 AM Gargoyle-There's no need to be uncivil. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Hollowfox Date: 22 Mar 03 - 12:36 PM My favorite boss-from-hell was a chain smoking doctor who was the head of a hospital lab. One day she threw a lit cigarette into her full wastebasket. When it caught fire, she grabbed the wastebasket and ran into the preparation room yelling, "Fire!" Miraculously, she didn't blow the place to kingdom come, as they were using ether as part of the slide preperation process at that time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: MMario Date: 22 Mar 03 - 01:08 PM The truth of the mattr is - that if most work situations were featured in sit-coms the charactors would be described as "unbelievable" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: GUEST Date: 22 Mar 03 - 02:08 PM The strength of the Dilbert is that many can relate it to real life working experiences. You can read it and think "Yes, been there" or "happens here too"... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Amos Date: 22 Mar 03 - 02:43 PM I catch up with the lot of them in Dilbertland once every few weeks and I NEVER fail to see a situation that exactly parallels a recent work experience. Which is kinda scary. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Joe Offer Date: 22 Mar 03 - 03:19 PM The frightening thing about Dilbert is its universality. Just about EVERYBODY can relate to it. Except me. I retired three years ago, when I was 51. I don't plan to work any more, ever again. Nohow. I guess that goes to show you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You can become a musician. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Sam L Date: 22 Mar 03 - 07:24 PM Gargoyle, I hesitate to say this... sometimes you're a little bit rude. You don't get it. With all the effort it takes to change jobs, the odds are pretty much even you'll be going from one frame to another in the same kind of cartoon. You leave when it suits you--it can be like planning a wedding, you want to go just right when you walk out. It's more useful, if you are in a Dilbert cartoon, to keep it as funny as possible. Much easier when you go part-time. One thing we did was to write a movie based on the job--Best In Show gave us the impression it might actually fly, since our place is also a parade of freaks. And it's fun to cast everyone, develop the script, we got a pretty solid plot together. I need to sort out the notes and tune it up a little one of these days, it has some fresh stylistic devices. Another toy is to prepare for those things that aren't very funny, but will become funny about the thousandth time around. Start everyone saying a phrase like "that's job security". It may be a little amusing at first, then will get lame, but keep it going, eventually it will be hilarious. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Liz the Squeak Date: 22 Mar 03 - 07:25 PM I had a manager who in the space of one week used a third person to tell me not to pass messages through a third person - a message I passed only as a courtesy, because he'd been complaining about courtesy only the day before, like letting him know when we'd be late. This third person came to my desk at one end of the room, from his at the other end OF THE SAME ROOM and said I was not to use third parties but to go and see him. Same manager Emailed me 3 days later telling me not to Email him with a leave request. He'd just asked a colleague to Email to him with her leave requests, and had bitched at me for not having the courtesy to tell him my leave requests. And people wonder why my marbles fell out! LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: GUEST,Jon Date: 22 Mar 03 - 07:44 PM Interesting thoughts Joe. It's got me wondering how universal it is. The time I relate to best was when I had the (perhaps silly) job title "ststems co-ordinator" for a UK white goods company. Dilbert painted a truer picture then than one might imagine. It wouldn't however have worked for me so well if I related it to an earlier time in my working life as "car cleaner/ forecourt attendant" and certainly doesn't relate to my current position of "unemployed alcoholic". I also wonder country wise. It seems clear to me that I as a UK person can relate to what I think is an American cartoon but what about other countires? Is working life, say, the same in Japan? Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 22 Mar 03 - 08:25 PM Jon, I believe that the Japanese manufacturing facility philosophy is vastly different. We have lots of Japanese plants around here (automotive), and some of them actually send employees to Japan to learn the system. A lot of the manufacturing philosophy is based on "quality" and "teamwork." I personally worked for the Brits and the French, and we communicated with Americans, Swiss and Germans. The French were the only ones I never care to communicate with again. Everything was more difficult than it should have been. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: GUEST Date: 22 Mar 03 - 09:04 PM Aye Mary, and then maybe we Westernise them, forget the real meaning of words like "quality" but instead use them as "buzzwords". Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Rara Avis Date: 22 Mar 03 - 09:59 PM Well, I did get my performance evaluation last week and discovered that I'd been downgraded in the "teamwork" category, despite the fact that I work alone. It seems that the boss is unhappy because I don't care for one person in the office. Mind you, she gets the same sunny smile and cheerful greeting I give everyone else even though she is a repellent creature. I'm not bothered because my cube is my own private realm, a wee island of tranquility - complete with tea service - in a sea of corporate chaos, in which the repellent one does not exist. Besides, I'm pension eligible! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 23 Mar 03 - 03:23 AM Before I retired I always looked at the daily Dilbert online. So often the cartoon was apposite to our boss & situation that day that my colleagues suggested I was feeding Dilbert his ideas! RtS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Don Firth Date: 23 Mar 03 - 05:11 PM I have a rich lode of stories about the various jobs I have worked, but a real doozey was when I worked for an accounting firm under contract to the Bonneville Power Administration. The BPA had an extensive, statewide residential weatherization program going (having determined that it was cheaper to encourage conservation that it was to build more dams and power-plants). The firm I worked for inspected the newly weatherized homes to make sure that everything was up to specs, and my job was to take the various inspectors' reports (sometimes fifty at a shot) and boil them down to one six-page report, then submit them to the BPA. My official title was "Administrative Assistant/Technical Writer." (I know what a "technical writer" is, but what's an "administrative assistant?" Well—what the heck! It sounds impressive.) At first, the dozen of us (ten inspectors and two technical writers) worked at home. I sat at my computer and one of the inspectors would drop by and bring me a stack of inspection sheets. I would go through them and turn them into one comprehensive report. Sometimes I had to work for ten or twelve hours a day for several days in a row to get one out on time, sometimes a couple of days would go by with nothing to do. Whichever it was, I still got paid for a regular eight-hour day. Great job! No commuting, nobody watching over my shoulder, I could sit there and work in my jammies if I wanted to, and I could work my own hours, just as long as I got the report finished before the deadline. We'd all have a breakfast meeting at a downtown restaurant once a week. But people in the downtown offices chafed. Frank at the BPA kept saying "We pay these people to work eight hours a day. But if they're working at home, how do we know they are actually working?" (Worry worry worry fret fret fret) This, despite the fact that the work was getting done, and always on time. In the meantime, Barry at the accounting firm had the cloying lusts of an empire-builder. He was a lowly contract supervisor. He wanted to be an office manager (covet covet covet). But we didn't work in an office, we worked at home. Frank and Barry conspired. They lobbied. They agitated. They wheedled. Finally the BPA and the accounting firm agreed to lease a suite of offices one floor down from the BPA offices, and now, we former free souls all had to come in there and work—from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The BPA covered the accounting firm's expenses, of course, and with the new arrangement, they had to pay for the leased office space, office furniture, phones, computers, and the usual stuff that you need in a business office. But—Frank could come downstairs, walk around and peer into the cubicles, and thus assuring himself that everybody actually was working. And Barry had an office of his very own, complete with ficus plant in a large ceramic pot in the corner and a nice view of Puget Sound where he would sit, rub his hands together, and smile. And we'd have our meetings there, in Barry's office. The company wouldn't buy us our once-a-week breakfast anymore. In the meantime, the work-load was piling up and some of it wasn't getting done on time anymore. We no longer worked ten or twelve hours a day when needed because they wouldn't authorize overtime, so when 5:00 o'clock rolled around, we were gone, whether the reports were done or not. So they hired more people. This meant they need more space, more office furniture, and more computers. We had started with a dozen and we were getting the job done. Now we had two dozen, and the work was getting done, but just barely. So—when it came time to renew the contract between BPA and the accounting firm, the Powers That Be at BPA decided that the whole thing had become much too expensive. They declined to renew the contract and assigned some of their own staff to do what we—the suddenly unemployed—had been doing. Thanks, Frank. Thanks, Barry. Hi, Dilbert. . . . Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Rara Avis Date: 23 Mar 03 - 08:00 PM Don Firth, Speaking only from personal experience, Administrative Assistants are what secretaries became when their responsibilities were increased. The title change was in lieu of a pay raise because who wouldn't be proud to parade around a new title rather than trouser a bit more cash. Some of us have gone on to be Executive Assistants, running entire departments and being quite amazed by it all. What a title! And to think, all this at no extra cost to the corporation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Sam L Date: 23 Mar 03 - 09:14 PM One place I worked which was not a Dilbert cartoon, but working with smart and sensitive employers, who I respect enormously, we were permitted to avail ourselves of what titles we wanted. I think I was the Duke of Earl, briefly, before I promoted myself to forensic pathologist of contemporary art exhibits. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Homeless Date: 23 Mar 03 - 10:02 PM I worked one place where the corporate office was in one state and the programming department was in another. The VP of Sales (at corp.) would call and ask for the VP of Development. I'd say he wasn't in and could I take a message. The VPoS would just say, "Put me thru to his voice mail." I'd have to tell him, "Peter doesn't have voice mail." "Well he used to." "Yeah, but we haven't had voice mail in this office for two years now." "Oh." This conversation happened relatively frequently. Eventually VPoS decided we need voicemail in our department, but didn't want to spend the money for an updated phone system. So what he ended up doing was having them create voicemail boxes for us on the corporate phone system - the one on the other side of the country. So if someone called one of the developers or the VPoD and that person wasn't in, we were supposed to have the caller then call the corporate office to get connected to that person's voicemail. But to top it all off, VPoS sent this e-mail out... The development staff now has voicemail on our system. However, since they will get voicemail only occasionally, they are not expected to check their mailboxes on a regular basis. So if you leave a voicemail be sure to send them an email to let them know to check their voicemail. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: jonm Date: 24 Mar 03 - 07:54 AM I used to work with one personnel officer. If I needed, say another lab technician, I would say so - an historic job description and advert would appear in my pigeonhole for amendment, when I'd returned them the advert would be placed in the usual papers, she would collate the replies and, once shortlisting was done, find a suitable date in my diary and invite the candidates for interview, then processing all the data for the new appointee on the day. Slick, eh? Now I have four permanent staff in our personnel department, two filing papers, one filing nails and one looking up foreign holidays on the Internet. I go in to explain that I need a technician, I get given a checklist.....have I justified the salary, have I written a job description, have I written an advert, where would I like it placed, when would be suitable to hold a shortlisting meeting with the HR manager.... it would be easier to do the whole thing myself! The administrative staff salary bill climbs ever higher and nobody realises that we are employing more incompetents to create more paperwork which requires even more incompetents to process! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Willie-O Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:25 AM I believe an administrative assistant is someone who knows how to spell, and the correct uses of there, their and they're. Kim, you do tech support? Or is that an adjunct to your actual job? My experience after two years of Internet tech support, is that I try not to let on at parties that that's what I do. Everyone thinks it's interesting and expects you to know everything about every error message Microsoft has ever written. (Well, I don't, but I know where to look them up, if I'm online, not when I'm at a party). The best story at the helpdesk about "what I did on my last day when someone really got to me" was the guy who told the customer "I'm going to transfer you to our most senior technician who can definitely solve your problem." Then he cold-transferred him to Pizza Pizza. Ha. Here's one I got, and recorded for posterity. Caller: My internet's not working. Me: I can help you, are you at your computer? Caller: No, cause my house burned down, I'm at my brother's. Me: Your house burned down? Caller: Yes, and my computer was in it, do you think it is damaged? That calls for a speculative answer on my part, but I think what's left of that computer may not perform in as-new conditon... More of these gems are in my LiveJournal archive under the heading Tales from the helpdesk Feb 21, 2002 Finally I just want to point out to Garg that you are a pathetic loser asshole. You must be an executive. Willie-O |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Naemanson Date: 25 Mar 03 - 10:00 AM These are good. I remember working for a boss who ran the office by temper tantrum. I've seen her rip folders out of a drawer and throw them on the floor. She regularly hauled people into her office and read them the riot act. She didn't seem to notice that her walls, though substantial wood and drywall construction with glass windows, stoped within a foot and a half of the ceiling. Thus, every word she hollared at her victims was clearly heard in the main office. We called her the Dragonlady. I had a sign on my door for a while that said "Dragonslayer" and it amused her until she overheard someone refer to her as Dragonlady. She then stomped straight into my office, tore it down, and threw it on to my desk. We banded together and began to compete to see who could piss her off more. We were talking of assigning points based on the noise coming out of the office whne I left to take this job... as a supervisor. I learned a lot about how not to run an office from her. Another story has to do with new software provided by our head office. It was given to us as a great labor saver. Unfortunately it was developed by the Air Force and I work for the Navy. The Air force developed it to buy widgets and I buy construction. We are talking serious apples and oranges here. As a result the program does not work very well. It requires lots of shortcuts and huge portions are completely useless. Plus the resulting document is a piecemeal jumble of clauses that are difficult to read (as though Governemnt contracts were ever easy). And then, at the last conference, it was announced that we were getting two new programs that would also make our lives easier. So, we complained. And the captain of our organization told us to suck it up and move on because they had already incorporated the labor savings of those new programs in personnel cuts and there was no turning back. Note, we don't have the programs in place yet and they are already anticipating the savings in labor... Dilbert is a local call. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: GUEST,Rara Avis cookie-less Date: 25 Mar 03 - 11:41 AM Can you bear one more anecdote? An employee who works for an accounting firm in our building told me about his vice president finally learning the mysteries of email and his eagerness to show off his mastery of same. The VP would type an email message, print it out, make copies, and then tape the copies to each person's monitor. And how did he send email to the remote locations? He faxed them. Another Captain of Industry to admire and emulate! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: GUEST,Jon Date: 25 Mar 03 - 11:54 AM Apples and oranges with software... I once picked up a rumour that a company I worked for used a system because thier parent company had wrote it and didn't wan't them using anything else. The problem was that this system was based on the parent companies other activities, things like defence systems, slow builds, long lead times, etc. and was not suited to our assembly line production of white goods. I believe an agreement was made that we could modify the software. All I know for sure is that when I first got involved, the official documentation was quite different to what our site was given. The programers and analysts worked in the head office and modeled it on the site there which was an old site. They never thought to look at our site which was the newest in the group. The problem there was unlike the other sites which had rules that one product could only built in one area, we had 4 assembly lines at the time and could have the same product running on 2 lines at once, put one product down one line one time, down another next, etc. to best suit production plans... I think the system worked quite well when we got it in but once in a while one had the joy of talking to one of the (very good) analysts and explaining to them that an idea for the system would not work or would cause us negative stocks all over the place because our sites added flexibility/complexity had again been overlooked. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Kim C Date: 25 Mar 03 - 01:05 PM What, Garg, and come work for you? Not a chance! The truth is, I have a pretty good job. The Big Boss is not my immediate supervisor, and so I don't have to deal with her very often. Most of the time when things go haywire in the office, it's usually little silly stuff that doesn't really amount to anything but a minor annoyance and a chuckle. Well worth tolerating for the 4 weeks vacation I get. ;-) Willie-O, I am sort of the backup to the tech support person, but even so, I am usually the one people come to first. I'm not sure why that is, because the official Tech Support person knows what she's doing, and gets it done. So when somebody comes to me with a concern, and Pat is here in the office, I just go to her. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: GUEST,willie-o Date: 25 Mar 03 - 03:58 PM Kim, That's what my wife does, except they don't have an inhouse support person, so she is it even though she has too much work already. That's why she knows more than I do. She denies it, but I know it's so. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Ulysses 1874 Date: 25 Mar 03 - 08:30 PM Many years ago, I worked in the IT department in an Irish Government agency. They were into "efficiency savings", and one of the things they did was to recycle used envelopes for internal mail. One day, my manager (good guy and occasional contributor to this forum) got one such envelope. It had been re-closed with a couple of staples, one of which gave him a small cut when he opened the envelope. He read the memo inside, which was a note from Personnel advising staff that it was safer to re-close envelopes with sticky tape rather than staples. :^) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Charley Noble Date: 25 Mar 03 - 09:04 PM Perhaps this thread was in mind when Tejitu, my calcio cooncat, brought into the kitchen a most peculiar mouse yesterday. I wasn't in the kitchen at the time but when I walked in, there was Tejitu staring intently at the base of the sink cabinet at a small white mouse with large black spots on its back. The mouse didn't seem to be inclined to move, which as a tactic was smart. Tejitu is a firm practitioner of "catch and release" and gets bored when her catch no longer wants to play. Anyway, she seldom hurts what she catches, unlike her sister Tilahun who gulps the whole thing down except for its tiny feet. I was curious that this mouse did not look like any wild mouse I had ever seen. In addition to its peculiar coloring it, still, sported a long tail. Well, I captured it easily in a plastic cup and transported it to a 1 gallon glass container for further observation. I dropped in some grass, bread crumbs, a small jar of water and some salad; it began to consume with great gusto. My wife arrived back home later and did an efficient search on the internet and concluded that the mouse in question was probably an escapee from some neighboring house, and that there was a whole list of accessories that could be purchased to augment its happiness. Now it resides in a 5 gallon aquarium, the bottom covered in wood chips, there's a water bottle hanging from one side, a bowl of cereal and seeds, a screened top, and a small bungalow in the corner. We've named it Dilbert. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: NicoleC Date: 26 Mar 03 - 01:38 AM Now your kitties have two TV's... the window and the mouse cage! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Blues=Life Date: 26 Mar 03 - 08:29 PM This reminds me of Drew Carrey's famous line: There's a support group for people who hate their jobs... it's called EVERYBODY and they meet in the bar! *G* Blues |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Kim C Date: 27 Mar 03 - 10:07 AM Say, a beer sounds good right about now... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Charley Noble Date: 27 Mar 03 - 12:01 PM Dilbert the Mouse is doing very well, by the way, but his 5 gallon case is getting cluttered up with all kinds of play toys, and he/she never puts them away in the proper drawers and closets! I'm for an ale! Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Willie-O Date: 27 Mar 03 - 04:45 PM Kim I take it you're at work... :)= W-O at school. still. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Ely Date: 28 Mar 03 - 04:41 PM I knew my boss must have relatives out there. He complains that he's losing money but his first reaction when a client gets nasty is to cut them a big discount to shut them up. He complains that his employees are ruining the trucks but he buys cheap trucks that aren't strong enough to do what he wants them to do, and have stick shifts that most of his teenaged drivers don't really know how to use (hint, get one BIG, automatic truck and save yourself replacing transmissions on 2-year-old vehicles). (I work for a veterinarian) I started two years ago as a kennel-scrubber with no experience and have progressed to being a useful technician. I don't have an LVT degree but I can do competently most of the things that LVT's do (and I have three years of college biology, so it's not as if I don't have any background), but he won't give me a raise. I have to learn EVERYTHING before I get a 50-cent/hour raise. I'm 25 and don't make a living wage. He recently forgave a bitchy client a $500 debt. $500 would have covered a 50-cent raise for me for a full year. Needless to say, I'm thinking of going back to school. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: GUEST,Jon Date: 29 Mar 03 - 09:20 AM Ely, what on earth do you people do with manual transmissions? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Gloredhel Date: 29 Mar 03 - 11:39 AM Joe, I'm not so sure about the whole light at the end of the tunnel/becoming a musician thing. It depends on what sort of musician you're becoming. My orchestra conductor seems to think that saying "I got your email" a week after I sent it counts as replying, and the ties he wears are so damn bright I need sunglasses. Not to mention the fact that he complains about his lovelife, or lack thereof, all the time. It's so obvious that he's married to his cello, I'd have to wonder about any woman who went out with him. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Help! My Job is a Dilbert Cartoon! From: Melani Date: 30 Mar 03 - 02:16 AM I am so lucky! I love my job. My boss does a number of things that drive us crazy, but he's a really great guy and we like him, so we think his idiosyncracies (sp?) are cute. I am the entire staff of the office I run, so I don't have any hassles with anyone. P.S. I don't make a living wage, but you can't have everything. |