More on that cellphone..

I get called into the bosses office this morning, or wait he didn't get in until 11 or later so maybe it was afternoon. Either way, I get called in there because the idiot can't open his Outlook. Apparently it crashed and burned and oh by the way "Outlook sucks!" according to him. I have absolutely no problems with Outlook and I really have to say that neither do any of the other millions of customers around the world using it. But wait this is also coming from the guys that uses some off-brand no-name accounting software that isn't compatible with anything in the market today and still runs off of 10 year old database technology, and claims it is the best application out of it's kind. I could list off 100 reasons that perhaps Microsoft GreatPlains would do a better job, but it still would suck for him because he is too stupid to understand how it works. I blame the user!!!

Anyways, so I walk into the office click on the Outlook icons and guess what... yep.. it loaded without fail. So I closed it and opened it again... oopss.. shit it opened without fail again! WTF, maybe if you weren't trying to download "Chicks-with-dicks_143_6969_Imreallyavirus.mpg.avi.pif" to jerk off to we wouldn't be having any problems. I just want to scream at him, "PUT THE PORN DOWN!!!!!" So he looks at me and is like oh it's fixed.. what did you do? I said, "Well let's see I pressed the left mouse button twice rapidly over the Outlook icon." How is that for a technical description? He didn't find the humor, seems like he never does. But what am I supposed to do? I can't make up for him being a retard.

So he says, "Oh by the way, this cellphone overage thing has been happening more than just this time". I'm thinking SO what? So I said, "Well I wasn't aware of it, and besides it doesn't matter I'll pay you for it and then I am getting my own personal phone." That's when he quickly responded back, " Well we could just bump up the plan." OKAY WAIT?!!
You mean to tell me that this overage thing has happened before but you haven't said anything to me about it. But all of the sudden you are trying to pin it on me as some sort of big deal? And now only because I am saying that I will get my own phone, you offer the solution of bumping up the plan. I mean really, I know it's hard for you buddy but try to use the few bits of brain matter you have to think about why you wouldn't have just done this in the first place.... yeah exactly.. what's that your Outlook won't open again...

Seriously... I must leave this place.. I think that something in the air is dissolving our brains.

Ringy Dingy

So yesterday right before leaving I get another aggervation. I was attempting to leave the office at an early 5:05pm in order to have dinner with some family friends. As I was going to get up my boss walks into my office and throws down a cellphone bill on my desk. Now I should preface this with the following information. My boss agreed to paying for my cellphone for both work and personal use since I told him he could either pay for any work calls on my old cell phone or I just would be out of contact whenever off-site. The reason for this is that I did not want to have to carry two or more cellphones again ever. Anyways back to the issue. So he looks at me and says you went way over on your minutes and you owe me "X" amount of dollars. He looked at me and said "Man you really must be in love because you talked to her everyday, sometimes twice a day." At that point I looked at him slightly bewildered and utterly dumbfounded by his stupidity. I said, "Well if your wife was out of town for over 30 days you would probably talk to her a lot as well." that is when he said no. I shook my head, not so much in surprise since I know his wife but more so because I don't believe that he understood my point, and just said "That's the difference between you and I."

So of course that set me off, especially considering it is so close to the holidays and the employees here at the company will be lucky to get a card or maybe a cheap box of chocolates that they can buy in bulk. I guess I shouldn't complain, I mean something is better than nothing right? Oh wait, that's right I got a big fuck you pay your cellphone overage, oh and by the way Merry Fucking Christmas. Not that I'm hostile ;-) The least they could do is turn up the heat in the office, I mean it takes all day for the space heaters to heat the building up to above 65 degrees. By the time it's semi-comfortable we all go home.

FREEZING!

So after scrapping the ice off of the car this morning and driving in the 1 degree weather to work. I hadn't planned ahead enough for how cold is was going to be at the office. My fingers are literaly unable to type with any speed due to being almost frozen. They are actually in pain from the movement and I am making mistakes. Perhaps that is the hypothermia setting in? I have my coat on and space heater on high. I noticed that the other employees had all of the office doors closed around them trying to hold in what little heat might be available. It seems that the owners have not yet understood that if you turn the heat down to 45 degrees over the weekend it costs more money to heat up the place every day. Even at night we have the heat turned down to 67 degrees. This can't be a healthy working enviroment, nor does it help anyone get motivated to get anything done. My body is slightly sore from shivering, and the coffee cools down within minutes if you don't drink it fast enough.

So, we have a guy doing a technology show in another state. He is going to most likely be doing this by himself as it seems that most of the employees are attempting to be gone before this show. He called me today to ask for advice, I find it hard to even help him considering I don't understand what he can sell without anyone at the office. I guess it will depend on how many people actually leave like they say they are going to. I feel bad for him though because he can't get out. He needs to get the rest of his comission paid. They have strung him out for too long and now he's too deep to leave. Man that sucks.

Nothing right now.

It's late... I will have to comment twice tomorrow... I need to get out of here..

Hump Day

Today has been devoid of any excitement so far. Although I did get to send the boss out to pick up my lunch today. It was definitely nice not having to brave the cold weather and leave the office to get food. It is not so much the cold weather that puts a wrench in the idea of going to lunch as leaving the office and having to come back. When you leave here it is as if you are being slightly teased that other things besides the mess and mayhem within this business enviroment actually exist during the day. Plus, on days as cold as today, you are in your vehicle or restaurant just long enough to warm up only to walk back into your office to loose feeling in your hands and feet again. So it was a pretty boring day of slight accomplishment. I was able to troubleshoot some problems for a client which kept me busy most of the day. On top of that I was assigned the task of researching a product for it's potential fit in our market. The best part about that was as I was figuring out the issues an e-mail came my way that pointed out the downsides for me without me having to do a lot of the work. This left me to only have to get a few answers. That was nice. Anyways, not much else to say so I'll leave it at that.

Opps... forgot Monday!

So I missed Monday.. I guess the day flew by. It was so cold in here this morning that I couldn't hear right because I believe my ear drums were frozen. It was as if everything was muffled. Well could've been that plus the combination of the roar of my space heater on full blast. This place sucks, I mean I get about 1.5 hours a week of vacation time that builds up. Something like that, anyways, so I had just under a week and I decided well I would like to take it off between the holidays to go out of town. So I go through the process of filling out the paid time off request form. As I walk towards the boss' office I get that nervous feeling knowing that he's going to be a complete dick about it. And sure enough I wasn't let down. He gave me a look like what the heck is this? So I handed it to him and said "Thanks bud!", he looked at me sternly and said, "I didn't approve it yet!". So trying to hold back my complete frustration and the fire catching between my temples, 'I said well I have the availabe time to take those 4 days off.", and he sits down at his chair and says "Yeah but it is year-end." Meanwhile, through my mind in slow motion I am envisioning picking up the chair next to me and throwing it at him while screaming how much of a F-ing idiot he is and that he has absolutely no appreciation for any of his employees. So, while these nasty, evil thoughts are crossing my mind he is muttering something about "Blah, blah, blah, bullshit f-ing bullshit, I have to take viagra because my woman does nothing for me, blah, blah..." Later on that afternoon, after giving him the blank stare I said, " so you are not going to approve it?" and I give him the look of like whatever then your choice dumbass, and shrug my shoulders, thinking in the back of my head that I am coming down with a severe case of the ICANTWORK virus. So he quickly chirps in, " Well I didn't say you couldn't have the time off either..." At this point, conversation changed to, "So what have you been working on today?" I wanted to give him the truth and let him know that I have been desperately searching for new employement to get out of here and muster back any of the little shreds of life that this place has not sucked out of me. But I didn't, I gave in and quickly filled his head with bullshit things like, "Fixing so and so's problem, and searching for this solution, and quoting companies software and hardware." Conversation pretty much ended after that and I tucked my tail and headed back to my warm enclosed office with no windows.

Anyways, the moral of this story is that I need to grow a pair and find a job in order to enforce the beauty that is being in complete control of the situation. Like one of the other workers here who got a different job and is just floating out his remaining time without a care in the world. Oh how nice that must be.... UGH.. THIS PLACE SUCKS.

You know I researched another company, it's a small one probably larger than ours since we keep losing employees and not replacing them. Anyways, bottomline is that their starting benefits are better, like 4 weeks of vacation within the 1st year of employement. Starting DAY 1 how ridiculous is that.. we fight here over the last shreds of toliet paper or paper towel to dry our hands, while constantly fighting a dog out of our offices or cubicles. THAT DOG!!! If he gets in my trash one more time.. I SWEAR... he's so dirty, rolling around in the swamp across the street and them coming into your office and farting, them making that sneaky exit. Leaving the stench so that people that come in directly after think it was you...

I have got to find a new job.

Get Some!

So today I was at work and the boss comes into my office with some information regarding E-commerce websites and ODBC database connection tools. Too bad he used buzz words from our prior conversations to find the information. See the problem is that I mentioned the words like Foxpro, MySQL, and data transfer and he did a simple search on this shit to find information. He has absolutely no concept of what any of this means and likes to think that he does. So any information he gives me is usually something close but not quite what I am looking for. Anyways, the day started off with me already being pissed off because I was thinking to myself.. listen who knows this kind of stuff, me or you? I think the reason it gets to me is because he wants me to go ahead and research the stuff and then he does it anyways and walks into my office with a shit eating ear to ear grin like "Look I found the solution" and then I have to constantly tell him "NO! What you found was something that had a paragraph that contained partial words of what I had mentioned in a conversation but has nothing to do with anything we are trying to accomplish." I mean it boils down to, do you want me to do my job or would you like to do it for me while I manage you. I mean you own a company get to work on some of the other shit that needs getting done. Have you noticed that in the past 1 year you have lost 4 employees while only gaining 1. Doesn't make must sense to me. Meanwhile the remaining employees get the work-load left over dispersed amongst ourselves. It's slightly stressful.

Anyways, on the phone today with our solution provider for accounting software, the owner say something like.. hey so what do you do in "PO-DUNK" county on a friday night? The guy on the other end of the phone says well my wife and I don't have any kids so we stay home and watch TV. After discussing which show they like to watch on friday nights my boss says, "Geez, no wonder you don't have any kids!"
Excuse me but HELLO!!! PROFESSIONALISM ever heard of it? Didn't think so.

Sometimes I am so embarrassed to even be associated with him.

I have to go, it's late and I'm drinking beer and playing video games. At least I have a few days to relax before being at the office. Enjoy!

Almost Friday...

So today was a pretty good day considering I didn't get in until about 9:30am. I worked on some silly bid for a guy and then moved right into my research about fixing our e-commerce website. Both of which I have no interest in but whatever, someone needs to do it. I did however have two positive ideas today. I have decided which digital camera I am going to buy, and I have decided to make a coffee table tonight. Well at least start the coffee table tonight. I highly doubt it will get done all in one night, but hey, stranger things have happened. I really wish at this moment my third brilliant idea would arrive.... something having to do with how to get out of coming into work tomorrow but not having to take any sort of vacation day. Like working from home, or some other location. Probably not going to happen. One things for sure though I'm not staying late tomorrow.

I just found out interesting information today. Apparently, not only do we service our customers on-site but we have not billed for a majority of it. I will come back to this... anyways, so the other day the owner gets a bill from a sub-contractor. This sub-contractor didn't line item price his hours. Basically the bill just said (x amount of hours) x (x amount of dollars). Then gave a total for a few of these. No description in what was done during this time period. So of course the owner questioned the sub-contractor and demanded a description for accountability purposes. The sub-contractor responded that they do not have the time to be putting that type of information together. After a few times back and forth it has been decided that they are most likely not getting paid for this bill. Now I sort of, kind of, not completely understand but whatever.. not my call. Anyways, that being said, I have found out that not only do we not bill our customers for a lot of the work that we do, but also our bills to the customer look exactly like this. No description just a couple of lines that say so many hours, so many dollars. I find this quite humorus since this is what all of the fuss was about before. You would think if you were going to make demands like this of your sub-contractors you would be doing this on all of your bills. Whatever, just another example of the complexity and precision of this company. Many have tried to match it but few can reach the infinite levels of professionalism, expertise, and customer satisfaction. To them I say keep trying.

What's my name?

It's been a pretty laid back morning, not much is going on at least for me. Although my normal chat buddies are either not on or doing something that is preventing the from entertaining me at the moment. That creates a very slow day when there is no one to chat with. Once again the boss isn't in this morning. I need to own my own place so that I can come and go as I please and say things like "I'm so busy that I can't catch up." or "I'm working 12 hours days" knowning full well he's lucky if he puts in 15 minutes of decent work related time in a day. I mean a typical day starts out with him coming in at about 10:30am and then booting up his computer. That process alone wastes a half hour due to the amount of sh*t he has downloaded onto it. By the time he gets it up and running and logged in it take about another 15 minutes for him to open his applications, once again, more sh*t. Spyware, Porn, Videos, Music, I mean he has it all. In the computer world he is a walking STD infection (Stupid-enough To Download). He will download and open anything. As long as the title has something to do with some sick fantasy of his or contains one of the key sex terms, HE's IN. That makes my job a living hell, but enough on that. So he walks around the office like he's a lion watching over his pride. He is unaware that a rebellion is upon him. Obliviously, he will either start asking what people are working on, or depending on the mood start telling some LAME-ASS excuse for a joke. Everyone humors him with that mumble under their breath of "F-Off" and a half-ass smile. Because of this his ego inflates more and he thinks that he is everyone friend, so he moves on to his unsuspecting victim of the day. He'll approach that employee and lay into them about something that he either would have done differently or doesn't like to see them doing... he says things like "Do you like working here?", or "You know (Job Description) employees are a dime a dozen in this economy! I could replace you without having to think.". Meanwhile this victim is thinking quietly "Who cares! I hate it here" but they don't say anything as they enjoy the paycheck.

Finishing up the rest of his day is surfing porn or real estate listings on the internet, answering e-mails with one liners that don't get anything accomplished, and ignoring all phone calls that come in. He'll say he's too busy to talk to someone calling on the phone because he is too busy SURFING PORN! Then late in the afternoon near quitting time he'll want to discuss work and start having little status meetings. This creates more aggervation because now that the employee has worked a full-day, he/she would like to go home and not have a late meeting.

Needless to say I am sure that I am leaving things out but it's a good day to vent about it while he is gone. The owners wife who works here... yeah all I have to say is learn my NAME... because when people call for someone with a name relatively close to mine don't pass the call to me. This create mass confusion for me and angers me because the names are not that similar. But whatever, moving on I must do some work.

Rabbit Food is good for me

So last night I hung out and played some video games with my buddy. We drank a few beers and that made for a great morning. Actually it wasn't too bad, I think it is just the wretched horror of what the upcoming day at the office has in store that really makes each morning bad.

Waking up this morning the weather was about as shitty as it was last night, although less fog. It was just warm enough to keep the rain from turning into snow but cold enough for your balls to crawl back up farther into your body. Bone Chilling! That's probably the better way to describe it. On days like today it is hard to plan what to wear into the office since you want to wear a simple dress shirt and pants but need to dig out your long underwear (which I don't own) to keep from freezing solid at the office. The office runs about a nippy 68 or less degrees anywhere from 6am to 2pm.. after 2pm it seems to kick up to about 70-74 depending on how many people have entered and left, and how many space heaters are consecutively running.

I found out that a fortunate guy at work today has a second interview in the same week to get out of here and restore life for himself. Everyday here drains the life and driving force to motivate out of your viens. IT SUCKS!

Anyways, enough for now must help the other minions finish our busy work.

Nevermind, forget working, it's overrated. Okay so I just went outside to have a smoke and the rain had cleared up. The clouds are flying across the sky. It was kinda surreal, but whatever. I had lunch with a co-worker today which was slightly abnormal for my daily routine. We went to this pool place and I had a salad. Once again slightly weird. I don't know but it sounded great. Too bad it was almost like they placed the entire head of lettuce onto the plate and poured some dressing on it. Whatever it was a nice retreat from the office. I have this feeling that since the boss wasn't in yesterday and has been doing personal meetings all day that he'll get back here at about 10 to 5pm and expect us all to work late.

Since I got this office, which I must say is a huge office, they have had it painted and cleared out. It is what used to be an old storage room. It's a large rectangle with no windows and absolutely no cellular service what-so-ever. It's semi-depressing although it is about the furthest point in the office away from the boss so it's not all bad, and allows for a quick escape out the back for smokes or just to leave without notice. There is this ugly UGLY picture that has been sitting on the ground just inside the door for about 9 months. I hadn't even really payed attention to it as it leaned against the way all of that time. Yesterday T (co-worker) pointed it out and said sarcastically "Wow, that picture is awesome, you should hang it." So he picked it up and placed in on top of a server out in front of my desk. Since then everyone that has walked into the office has noticed it and made comments. Things such as, "Wow I think I saw that picture in a funeral home once." or "Whose attic did you find that in?". It has a rusty colored, old ass stained frame with a yellowish orange nature picture. Kind of like the classic $5 artwork that someone picks up for some ridiculous amount of money because they think it's special. I have to admit it's sort of growing on me since it's like my window to the world. It represents how cheap and shady everything at this company is.

Stupid Monday

Today wasn't as bad as a normal Monday at the office. The boss wasn't in so there really wasn't anyone here to screw up things or really get on anyones nerves. One of the guys at work today had an interview. I don't have time to get into the details of why everyone is looking for a new job here but since I just started this today and it's only Monday, I have plenty of time to explain. It's pretty sad though to see a company with such potential and so many good and loyal employees go to waste.

I can't stay late because my nomad of a buddy is crashing at my place tonight. I don't mind him staying I just feel bad if I am running late. Nobody is going to read this but I am just hoping it will help me vent my frustration about this job. It sucks but it pays the bills. If you are reading this look for more tomorrow. Could be exciting ;-) or humorous.

Okay must prepare to go home as this day is finally ending.