Work colleagues

[Gordon EF]

55 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

“Let’s attack this low-hanging fruit”

I like that. I'm imagining some maniac running through an orchard just punching the f**k out of pears.

[scottmcleanscontacts]

Last year I was sent to Japan for some training and just before I went a new cleaner had started in here. She's a lovely woman from Portugal and we'd had a few discussions when she was in cleaning, telling me about her family and stuff. Anyway, I went to Japan for 2 weeks and when I came back the first thing she shouted at me was "JAPANESE!". I was a bit confused as to what she meant, like if she wanted me to say something in Japanese or something, but clarified that someone had told her I'd been to Japan and it's somewhere she'd always wanted to go, and thus she has now decided my name is Japanese. Every morning since then it's been "Hey Japanese!" when she sees me. At first I found it a bit funny, but that's been over a year now and it's starting to grate a wee bit. She's just really happy all the time and I think I'd feel bad if I got serious over what is just a nickname, but I really would rather she just used my actual name.
I've left it too late to do this though, haven't I?

Sounds like you've got a Nippon with her.

[Hedgecutter]

12 minutes ago, scottmcleanscontacts said:

19 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Last year I was sent to Japan for some training and just before I went a new cleaner had started in here. She's a lovely woman from Portugal and we'd had a few discussions when she was in cleaning, telling me about her family and stuff. Anyway, I went to Japan for 2 weeks and when I came back the first thing she shouted at me was "JAPANESE!". I was a bit confused as to what she meant, like if she wanted me to say something in Japanese or something, but clarified that someone had told her I'd been to Japan and it's somewhere she'd always wanted to go, and thus she has now decided my name is Japanese. Every morning since then it's been "Hey Japanese!" when she sees me. At first I found it a bit funny, but that's been over a year now and it's starting to grate a wee bit. She's just really happy all the time and I think I'd feel bad if I got serious over what is just a nickname, but I really would rather she just used my actual name.
I've left it too late to do this though, haven't I?

Sounds like you've got a Nippon with her.

A good sensei humour goes a long way.

[scottmcleanscontacts]

A good sensei humour goes a long way.

I wonder if his colleagues name was Annie Mee.

[tamthebam]

2 hours ago, Chicken Wing said:

f**k, beat me to it!

[Beans on Toast]

1 hour ago, Gordon EF said:

I like that. I'm imagining some maniac running through an orchard just punching the f**k out of pears.

I enjoyed that wonderful imagery immensely. Thank you.

[GordonD]

On 01/10/2020 at 17:11, The Moonster said:

Last year I was sent to Japan for some training and just before I went a new cleaner had started in here. She's a lovely woman from Portugal and we'd had a few discussions when she was in cleaning, telling me about her family and stuff. Anyway, I went to Japan for 2 weeks and when I came back the first thing she shouted at me was "JAPANESE!". I was a bit confused as to what she meant, like if she wanted me to say something in Japanese or something, but clarified that someone had told her I'd been to Japan and it's somewhere she'd always wanted to go, and thus she has now decided my name is Japanese. Every morning since then it's been "Hey Japanese!" when she sees me. At first I found it a bit funny, but that's been over a year now and it's starting to grate a wee bit. She's just really happy all the time and I think I'd feel bad if I got serious over what is just a nickname, but I really would rather she just used my actual name.

I've left it too late to do this though, haven't I?

 

[BFTD]

On 02/10/2020 at 10:56, DiegoDiego said:

Some ideas:

Because they don't have storage for that volume.
The widgets will corrode over that length of time.
The company are planning on changing the design of their goods shortly which will require a different widget.
Is some weird budgetary thing where if they don't spend lots of money soon they'll get less next year.
For some other dodgy tax/accounting reason.
Imminent financial collapse.

It's not 1, 2, or 3.
4 is more in the ballpark, only the opposite - they seem to have arbitrarily limited themselves to spending less than a certain amount each week. Spending a grand is manageable, even if it means you'll have spent £52,000 during the financial year. Spending £10,000 in a oner is unacceptable, despite the fact that you won't have to spend anything else for a year and will have saved £42,000.
Could be 5; who knows.
It's not 6 either. There's a couple of million in the bank.

I've considered corruption of some sort, as it goes on elsewhere, but nobody gives a shit where the widget money's spent, just how much is spent at a time. I'm starting to accept that it's a combination of institutional laziness and ideological terror over spending money that comes from the top. Somebody's taking a fine tooth comb to the weekly figures without paying any attention to the long-term, and nobody in authority can be bothered to question it.

Anyway, I'll shut up now, as there's nothing I can do and I'm frankly boring myself.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

1 hour ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

It's not 1, 2, or 3.
4 is more in the ballpark, only the opposite - they seem to have arbitrarily limited themselves to spending less than a certain amount each week. Spending a grand is manageable, even if it means you'll have spent £52,000 during the financial year. Spending £10,000 in a oner is unacceptable, despite the fact that you won't have to spend anything else for a year and will have saved £42,000.
Could be 5; who knows.
It's not 6 either. There's a couple of million in the bank.

I've considered corruption of some sort, as it goes on elsewhere, but nobody gives a shit where the widget money's spent, just how much is spent at a time. I'm starting to accept that it's a combination of institutional laziness and ideological terror over spending money that comes from the top. Somebody's taking a fine tooth comb to the weekly figures without paying any attention to the long-term, and nobody in authority can be bothered to question it.

Anyway, I'll shut up now, as there's nothing I can do and I'm frankly boring myself.

is there a financial controller or someone like that you could maybe propose it to? Tbh I dunno how fussed you'd be about getting credit for it if they sort something out but if nothing else that'd look pretty solid on your CV as a nice little Key Achievement or however you want to put it!

£1 per widget vs. 10p per 100,000 makes me think that surely they could get either some sort of credit terms in place committing to the full supply at the lower price (maybe not quite so easy right now tbf...) or if nothing else try to negotiate the terms a bit if there's some other reason not to take advantage of the full trade discount (50p per 50,000 or something like that)

It does sound really absurd.

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, Thistle_do_nicely said:

is there a financial controller or someone like that you could maybe propose it to? Tbh I dunno how fussed you'd be about getting credit for it if they sort something out but if nothing else that'd look pretty solid on your CV as a nice little Key Achievement or however you want to put it!

£1 per widget vs. 10p per 100,000 makes me think that surely they could get either some sort of credit terms in place committing to the full supply at the lower price (maybe not quite so easy right now tbf...) or if nothing else try to negotiate the terms a bit if there's some other reason not to take advantage of the full trade discount (50p per 50,000 or something like that)

It does sound really absurd.

It's more that it's making my life more difficult than anything else. I'm being deliberately vague with the 'widget' thing, but it's a reasonable rough description of the situation.

Anything I could propose would only put me on a shoogly peg, unfortunately - at least two levels of management above me have been well told that their input is most unwelcome, and I know that one board member is personally monitoring my work on a daily basis out of spite because my boss managed to convince the board about the merits of change in one area. I think he's regretting having opened his mouth now.

It's a mind-meltingly obtuse organisation, and there are a few of us just hanging around to see what they get up to next TBH. That, and this is a bad time to be looking for work. I should probably stop boring the tits off everyone here about it, though.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

2 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

It's more that it's making my life more difficult than anything else. I'm being deliberately vague with the 'widget' thing, but it's a reasonable rough description of the situation.

Anything I could propose would only put me on a shoogly peg, unfortunately - at least two levels of management above me have been well told that their input is most unwelcome, and I know that one board member is personally monitoring my work on a daily basis out of spite because my boss managed to convince the board about the merits of change in one area. I think he's regretting having opened his mouth now.

It's a mind-meltingly obtuse organisation, and there are a few of us just hanging around to see what they get up to next TBH. That, and this is a bad time to be looking for work. I should probably stop boring the tits off everyone here about it, though.

no worries. You have my sympathy, have worked in a couple of sanity destroying environments before, albeit in different ways to piss poor budgetary control.

[HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows]

4 hours ago, Thistle_do_nicely said:

no worries. You have my sympathy, have worked in a couple of sanity destroying environments before, albeit in different ways to piss poor budgetary control.

Read this as sanitary at first and thought you were in the jam rag disposal industry. 

[DiegoDiego]

That's the first Christmas jumper of the season (gets earlier every year etc. etc.).

[coprolite]

18 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

That's the first Christmas jumper of the season (gets earlier every year etc. etc.).

Christmas can be a stressful time

[microdave]

1 hour ago, DiegoDiego said:

That's the first Christmas jumper of the season (gets earlier every year etc. etc.).

You must kill them immediately. No jury would convict you.

[DiegoDiego]

You must kill them immediately. No jury would convict you.

I should have killed her a few weeks back to be honest.

She's generally useless so has been passed around departments by management who are trying to find somewhere where she'll do the least damage.

She's still on probation and was about to be mutuality consented when a reliable, capable and pleasant member of staff was angered at his hours being cut in favour of this miscreant and told the boss to f**k off, leading to his dismissal and the permanent employment of the Christmas jumper-wearing imbecile.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

On 01/10/2020 at 19:02, BigFatTabbyDave said:

You work at a factory that uses widgets in the goods the company makes. Widgets cost £1 each, but you can order them in bulk for 10p each if you buy 100,000 at a time, which is about a year's supply for your organisation.

Other than imminent financial collapse, why would upper management insist on buying a week's supply at a time at the higher price?

Sounds like "procurement" have the final say.

"Our processes says this is the way it has to be done"

"But if I get it from this supplier then its 50% cheaper (for the tax payer btw)"

"Are they on our special procurement list?"

"No"

"Well then..."

"Can we get them on the list?"

Sucks teeth.

"Fill in these 45 forms and we'll get them on within 12 months"

"Go f**k yourself"

Fin.

I might turn that into a play.

[git-intae-thum]

12 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

This almost melts my ice cold heart. 

Awwww nawwww

[git-intae-thum]

[Dee Man]

2 hours ago, git-intae-thum said:

Thank you. I say this most weekend mornings to my kids when they arise from their long lie slumber and couldn't remember where I got it from.