It's the Work Vent Thread!

[pluckyduck]

I don't expect people to be actually interested in my mission for the days at work, but I have to vent somewhere. Feel free to skim my vent and just vent about your own stuff.

Okay, I need crayons. I need a bunch of crayons. I need a lot of crayons. We sell a whole buncha stuff for Fire Prevention Week (October) to fire companies across the country. From June through October, we'll probably sell about 75,000 4 packs (unimprinted) Prang brand crayons.

Our space is cramped so I can't order what would be skids and skids of crayons at once. I do my best to order about a two weeks supply at a time.

Well, about two weeks ago, my normal shipment was taking longer than I thought it would...suddenly, with a thud, it occurred to me that the shipment was sent via CF which stands for "Consolidated Freight" which happened to shut its doors the day after they picked up my shipment of crayons. Those 17,000 crayon packs are where they are and who knows if they will ever show up.

I wasn't too frantic. I had other orders in place at the factory. I confirmed they were shipping the day that I called and....

Waited. Backordered customer's orders. Waited. Backordered more customer's orders. Listened to my sales staff gripe that they had to keep calling customers back.

Today, I'm like where the HECK are my crayons and long story short...they never shipped. Not only did both of those orders never ship, but out of the 35,000 crayon packs I have on order, they were able to ship .... 1140 tomorrow.

This affects dozens of customers orders! Backorders are outrageously expensive...this whole fiasco had taken a billion hours of my time. (I still don't have an inventory manager so I do the job in my "spare" time )

I told the warehouse manager that I was going to send him and some of the guys on a road trip to buy up crayons in the tri state area.



How was your day?

Andrea

[brian_igo]

Better than yesterday.

Not that they've stared adding IQ points to the local water supply. We are about to change insurance plans and our management team is going the extra cliche to make sure they properly communicate the changes to the team members. (If you're playing Bullshit Bingo, you might have a coverup just in that sentence.)

Anyway, they form committees, develop the message and now they have it for anyone who wants to hear it. And what did they choose to call themselves? What title did they feel best described the service they would offer their fellow employees? (Forget for a moment why they need a title...)

Thought Leaders.

I kid you not. "If you have any questions, please see the following thought leaders:"

I don't work for some company that was founded by Jethro after Uncle Jed kicked the bucket. We're a fairly substantial part of a multinational. And, apparently, not one of the "thought leaders" either read Orwell or Huxley-or caught the relevant Cliff Notes-during their academic career. That, or they are one step ahead of needing a cup to catch the drool.

Then again, it might be part of the corporate culture. The latest issue of Pravda had a message from the "Chief Transformation Officer". I always thought the "Chief Transformation Officer" was a pet name the boss gave his right foot just before he broke it off in someone's ass.

The floor of our plant has more languages being spoken than the UN. There are people from five countries on three continents in my small department alone. But so help me God, if they ever offer free ESL classes, I'm putting the names of our management staff at the top of the list.



Brian

[kurt_messick]

The place I'm working for has been recommended for closure. The dinky little part time job I had that was barely keeping things going is itself going.

I was called by a nearby university and told they were sorry, they just hired someone else for a job for which I would have been perfect and in fact from my resume was their first choice, but their brand-new secretary called the wrong number and typed the email address so they hired someone else. What would possess them to call me and tell me that? ? ?

[lynnzop[$]]

I was supposed to have a nice, leisurely boring day today.

NOT.

Just finished a fire drill that started at 6:30 a.m. involving several spreadsheets that had to be compiled into one, and of course it had to look "pretty".

I hate creating spreadsheets in word, but it was easier than starting all over again in excel.

!sigh

1 hour and 37 minutes until quitting time.

Lynn

edited to add: At least it's better than Wednesday when I got yelled at for no reason by one of our attorneys. Pompous asshole.

[phoenixx]

Big ick today was TAXachusetts is now taking even more out of my paycheck - which SUCKS. No warning AND its retroactive to Jan 1 2002. Now I'll OWE next year for this years taxes. SO glad I moved here.

AND the shipment I need to complete a project has officially entered never never land.....

Grrrrrr

Leslie

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I was going to leave at 3pm. I even skipped lunch.

Now I'm cranky and snapping at all the stoopid people still here at 6:15pm and wishing they'd all shut the heck up and stop laughing and BTW, I'm PMSing.



mj

[jenninca]

Originally posted by lynnzop
Just finished a fire drill that started at 6:30 a.m.

My teacher mentality is showing through--I read this sentence and my first thought was, "Businesses do fire drills, too?"

Cindy
whose last fire drill was one minute before the kids left...some kid pulled it

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Originally posted by jenninca


My teacher mentality is showing through--I read this sentence and my first thought was, "Businesses do fire drills, too?"

Cindy
whose last fire drill was one minute before the kids left...some kid pulled it

Our business does fire drills. We're required to by the City.

[sylvanb]

What kind of fire drill involves spread sheets?

Presumably the term is being used metaphorically.

Guess I am falling behind* on business jargon -- wouldn't ever win Bullshit Bingo at this rate.

*sorry, I mean, out of the loop.

[pluckyduck]

I love the tangents our threads take.

Okay, today I got crayons. Not enough crayons to solve all my problems, but 8640....got a bunch of the small backorders out to customers.

What else?

Had to skip a press check today, but have kept in close contact with our rep at the press approval.

1) The entire background color of my 64 page catalog is wrong. The proofs looked fine but dot gain and the tone of the paper turned a cream background into a yicky shade of pinkish grey. Couldn't be fixed on press.

I've now narrowed my market to color blind customers. Hey, I'm into niche marketing, right?

2) My art department made a mistake that we didn't catch in any stage of the proofing even though it should have jumped out and hit us over the head...forgot to bleed one of the borders at the bottom into the gutter. (Print talk for "screw up" )

They had to shut the presses down to fix it. Cost me $1200 of coffee break time for the print folks while it got fixed.

Hope they had latte's.

Andrea

[Redlass]

Yeah! I'm glad your crayons arrived (OK, so it was three days ago, I'm a little slow.)

My day job is actually going extremely well, despite us just being told that we have 28 working days to get a textbook done (and we just started today).

My freelance work on the other hand...

I'm editing the second edition of an 18-chapter textbook which grew to 20 chapters. I was struggling horribly with a chapter that was supposed to have just minor changes to it. What was especially bothering me was that I could have sworn I had solved some of the problems five years ago when I did the first edition. Then the chapter started having major structural problems.

I finally figured out that the author had not used the chapter file I sent her (the one that had all of the edits from the first edition in it), but had gone back to her original draft. So now I need to reinput all the changes from the first edition and then do another edit to update it.

I'm so glad I'm charging by the hour.

[jenninca]

There's a fifth grade teacher at work who all of us other fifth grade teachers are about ready to strangle.

He won't use our discipline system.

He won't give out homework assignment sheets (blank ones--he doesn't have to write a thing except the copy request!!!) so his kids never have the homework for our classes. '

I'm going to have to give his kids a failing grade in A.R. because he doesn't make them read 20 minutes a night like our school-wide rule says, so they can only take tests over what we read in reading class unless they're really motivated, and being a bilingual class, motivation to read isn't high on most of their lists.

He won't make a library in his room unless I give him the books. Last year I gave him the books, but he wouldn't enforce my checkout system, so I lost about $90 worth of books. Not doing that again.

Yesterday I changed his calendar to September for him because I got sick of waiting for him to do it.

Yesterday another fifth grade teacher put up the cards for the discipline board in his room because he wouldn't do it.

Today a third fifth grade teacher made the book for kids to sign when they got in trouble because he wouldn't do it.

Today the fourth fifth grade teacher wrote out the detention slips for the kids of his who got a detention because he won't do it.

He yells at the kids all the time, but when any of us ask about a certain kid who is giving us problems, we got, "Oh, s/he's fine for me."

Last year he taught subjects that weren't tested, so it didn't matter that he doesn't teach well. This year, he teaches science, which will be tested for the first time. He's going to be the one screwing up the school rating that the rest of us work really hard to get.

He complains that he doesn't have enough time to teach science, then gives a quiz that takes 5-10 minutes and lets them work on other work the rest of the hour. Other times he tries to switch back early. And he always has time to check his email. Every time I try to get into my school email after he's been in my room, he's logged in, even if they spent all but the first two minutes in the "science lab."

Today three of my kids got in an actual punching fight while he was in the room. He was too busy checking his email to notice. The teacher next door finally came over and stopped and disciplined them.

He refused to send a progress report home with every student, even though EVERYONE else did. So the progress reports all went home with no science grade. I'm NOT taking any flak from parents upset that little so-and-so got a B or C instead of the A or B they were expecting. I'm directing them straight to him.

Another teacher and I dealt with him all last year, but this year we all deal with him, and his subject "matters" this year because of the test. He's got me more stressed than the kids!!!!!!

Cindy
who feels a bit better now, thank you very much

[Prepoia[$]]

Cindy,
There's one (at least) in every school. The rest of you have to stop covering for him. Refer any problems that arise out of his ashes to him or to the principal. Once he sees no one is going to do what HE'S supposed to he'll either do it or not but at least you won't get flack from his irresponsibility. Plus the principal is not going to be happy being the person parents question about his shortcomings. So when a parent says, "Why?" you say, "I don't know. I suggest you check it out with him and (principal's name.) Most parents get the clue really quickly that you don't wish to speak badly about a peer and/or that you can't do anything about it it's up to the teacher in question and the administrator. If the principal says (and I've not ever been questioned when doing this) "Why did you send Mrs. Smith to me?" Just say, "I didn't know the answer because it wasn't my classroom so I suggested she ask Mr What's His Name or You to get the answer."

Sandy
Who hates jerks like this because it seems like they make all teachers look bad but who has found out that parents "get it" really quickly and we still look okay.

The only real problem is that the kids aren't getting what they need. They are the losers but ..... it's NOT YOUR FAULT....and by being more proactive it might enact change that will in the long run help them. Either way, you can't take on the stress for your own it needs to be placed squarely and firmly on his shoulders where it belongs. You guys can't save the world and the time it takes to stress out about this jerk is time better spent on the kids and what you do for them.

You might also, when questioned by the principal about why such and such isn't being done, say, "I don't know. I do that but not all of the teachers follow the guidelines." If questioned further, it's not disloyal to the jerk to say, "His Name." and then add, but I thought that the two of you might have an understanding about this." Then the administrator will not think betrayal just that you didn't know you were getting him in trouble.

[pluckyduck]

Cindy -

The guy you describe is in every workplace. In a normal workplace (say, mine) it all comes to a head eventually when he doesn't get the raises other people do, gets passed over for promotion, gets mad and quits or gets fired or whatever. In a normal workplace, my advice would be to just ignore the guy and let nature take its course.

In some professions, though, like medicine and teaching and nuclear power plant supervision, people like this are dangerous and even deadly. Not deadly in your situation, but dangerous for not just this year of students but all of the students who come after this year's batch. He needs to be out of teaching, period. People who don't give a rat's butt about their jobs don't belong as influence on thousands of children's lives throughout their career.

I seem to remember that you have a good relationship with your principal? If you do, can you have a conversation with her, not just about this guy, but teachers like him and what a caring teacher's response should be to a co-worker such as this? If, as I remember you saying, the principal is good at what she does, she's already aware of the situation and is probably trying to figure a way to get rid of the guy. Giving him a subject that counts for testing may very well be her way to give herself some documentation to cut his sorry butt.

In today's climate, you can't fire people without covering yourself first. It may seem like a bad idea to let one class's (hey, how do you do the possessive of class??) test scores go down, but if it saves future classes from this guy, the sacrfice has merit.

If the guy were in my workplace, I'd have to be willing to sacrifice certain things in order to get the documentation to fire him. Could be the same situation and covering his duties would work against getting him out.

Good luck.

Andrea

[jenninca]

Originally posted by pluckyduck

I seem to remember that you have a good relationship with your principal? If you do, can you have a conversation with her, not just about this guy, but teachers like him and what a caring teacher's response should be to a co-worker such as this?

The other 5th grade teachers and I do have a good relationship with the principal. The four of us have been trying to figure out the best way to handle this. The one thing she won't take is whining--not from kids, not from parents, and not from teachers. We think this teacher kind of has her snowed. It's probably because the kids seem to love him. Well, yeah, because he lets them do experiments (that don't get followed up on) and their other homework, while the rest of us make them spend the whole period on our subject and do their homework at home. He lets them run wild, while the rest of us keep them in control and on-task. Of course they're going to like him.

Plus his homeroom is a bilingual class, and bilingual parents just don't seem to complain, especially because he can't speak Spanish and neither can the principal. When other parents complain, it usually gets directed to the homeroom teacher first, so we're in the situation with him in the principal's eyes.

So anyway, we're trying to figure out the best way of approaching the situation with the principal without coming off as whiners (which she won't deal with) or making the rest of our year with him miserable (he's already mad at us for doing the things we've already done). We just haven't figured out the right approach yet.

Cindy
who could tell a lot more stories about what he does and doesn't do, but will keep them to herself for now

[slick4591[$]]

Send him to the jr. high and make him a football coach.

[Prepoia[$]]

Slick is right, you know We've all known or had or work with teachers like this one. And, they are very good at smoozing everyone and you want to GAG everytime a parent or a kid says, "He make learning fun!"

I had a principal like yours. Didn't want to hear what she called, "whining" and told us to only see her when we had a solution to whatever problem we had. Yeah, right! Great job she had. While we scurried our butts around trying to solve administration problems she had none.

Jennica in a private school there's no union to deal with, right? That should make it easier. The hard part is that no one is complaining (for all the reasons you state). That makes me nuts. Principals listen to PARENTS not other teachers. We feel somewhat disloyal (maybe because they make us feel that way). In reality, if we don't police our own, (and we KNOW problems when we see them) then it will be status quo because principals don't want to look like bad guys to work for.

You teachers can't solve this alone. And, you can't tell me the principal doesn't know, she just doesn't want "management problems" of her own. I will say though that I've worked with two of these guys and neither lost jobs. I still work with one and the other transferred to another school. But, they sure fool everyone into thinking they are the "funnest" teacher and parents like that they don't have to deal with homework and other parent responsibilities so it makes it really, I mean REALLY, hard to do much about it.

Sandy