I Called In Sick Today

[InternetExplorer 2,609]

What's stupid is my boss (unknowingly) totally set me up to bring it up by saying he sees me in a product managing type role and I think devloping these skills would be a major bonus as it is defintiely a lacking area of mine. I might bring it up in my next one on one. It's just we don't have any formal education program from what I can tell and I just don't feel confident in bringing up this type of stuff so soon.

You could just say you were reflecting on the review and are wondering about whether the company has a program etc. etc. I see no reason why that can’t just be an email.

 

When I brought up doing lean courses a week or two ago with my boss, the response was “I don’t know about that, let’s just focus on the current designation first” in this condescending tone. I asked about it again after I shared the news that I had passed, saying, “what’s the timeline on lean? You seemed apprehensive when we talked about it before, and it’s no problem if it has to wait for a bit. I would just like to be able to plan around it.”

 

I get that you’re new to this company, but I just thought the contrast was funny. My boss basically has been insinuating that I am credentialing in preparation for leaving the firm after the time commitment is up, which would normally be terrifying, but I am pretty nonchalant about it. I’m not threatening to leave, or being anything but ridiculously easy to work with and (I think) very effective at what I do. I would reimburse the firm if I had a better offer on the table, because the dollars involved just aren’t material to the overall picture. You guys have heard my shtick on loyalty.

[InternetExplorer 2,609]

I got really off point in that response. I think it would be perceived as proactive.

[BigDMcGee 3,352]

This person is not human.

 

There's a non-zero chance she has alien dna.

[Essay21 2,385]

Management scheduled a last minute, market wide meeting for 830 this morning. They only do that when something monumentally stupid is coming down from the national office. I’ll probably be reporting to a newly hired third grader to promote forward thinking and inclusion of people of all ages.

[Napa Lite 3,278]

Well, don’t leave us hanging

[Essay21 2,385]

Sorry, took me awhile to clean out my office.

 

I WISH.

 

Essentially what thy did is create a meaningless layer of red tape where there was none. I have an admin officer, she works with only me on all my accounts. Before today, we shared a boss, the trust manager. Now my admin person, the person who I work most closely with, that speaks to my clients for me or in my place if I am not available, has a new boss, which is a brand new position created for unknowable reasons. This new position will manage trust support, investment support and sales support so that all the support staff can have one boss.

 

It’s ludicrously stupid, but that’s life in a big company.

[Napa Lite 3,278]

Fvckin companies, man. I just got out of a meeting where I was lauded for being so good at my job that people who shouldn’t be coming to me for help are and that’s a problem. And of course nothing was resolved or decided except an addition of a monthly meeting to go over some amount of stuff, or something.

[MisterB 2]

Today is Bean’s And Icewater’s 47th Birthday.

 

Happy Birthday!

[SuitedAces21 2,721]

may he rest in peace.

 

another shitty saturday. KU loses again, and its bitter cold out making me not want to leave the house. i am rematching LOST though. season 1 was so good.

[Napa Lite 3,278]

Huh, that’s weird. I had a good day with Iowa State beating OU. Some friends are hosting an Olympics party tonight. Inexplicably, none of the events involve alcohol other than drinking for drinking’s sake. I will be representing Canada. Going jeans with a long sleeve chambray shirt (HI RON), with a cutoff flannel shirt over it and suspenders. Bought a case of Labatt Blue to drink.

[Essay21 2,385]

Jesus, a guy moves to liberal ass Minnesota and becomes a Canadian. This is dangerous.

[Napa Lite 3,278]

Sorrey

[Ron_Mexico 4,219]

Napa es en Fuego

[Essay21 2,385]

Or is he as cool as the other side of the pillow? I like to think so anyways.

 

 

[SuitedAces21 2,721]

i'd forgotten how good LOST season 1 was. it really was a great show. seasons 2 and 3 are fantastic as well. I'm having a hard time remembering the rest besides the ending. i know time travel was involved and i think that is probably where we went off the tracks.

[Theraflu 1,035]

It was more the attempts to scientifically/mythically explain time travel. And then just punting that season and a half of explanation it with the ending.

[BigDMcGee 3,352]

I've only seen the first 3 episodes of lost, and the final episode. As someone who had zero expectations or investment in the ending of the show, I enjoyed the final episode.

[Essay21 2,385]

I didn’t mind the ending per se. they just made some mistakes along the way that made the ending worse.

[InternetExplorer 2,609]

Did some work on my annual review tonight. It’s another four months away, but my boss made some offhand comments last week about me being bogged down in too many projects, not finishing anything... clearly feedback I’m going to hear in my review.

 

I went through my calendar and sent emails going back to July and documented all the big initiatives I worked on. Having done this exercise, I feel really good about this upcoming review season. I am going to start doing this on a monthly basis to capture it all while it’s still fresh.

 

I have done some version of this review each year for the last few years. It’s probably overkill compared to what everyone else does, but I don’t miss any details, and the ROI on it is probably the highest of anything I work on.

 

How does everyone else do it?

[Napa Lite 3,278]

In the past I would just keep a very brief journal of projects and stuff and it worked because I was never that busy. For the most part reviews were always a joke and didn’t need much effort on my part. Maybe half an hour of putting pen to paper and bitching about how stupid this all is.

 

This new job though since I’m always working on five different things (and have got the same feedback you have about never actually finishing projects) I’ve been keeping a mostly daily journal of what I worked on and another spreadsheet of quote unquote projects with statuses, updates, timelines, needs and the such. It’s very uncomplicated and has really been for my own benefit and I didn’t really tell anybody that’s what I do but my boss mentioned he’d like us to get some more formalized tracking system down so I guess I’ll have to make it presentable.

[hank213 1,823]

I've done daily journal entries and should get back in the habit. We also do "4x4" goal setting. Essentially quarterly worksheets which highlight major accomplishments of mine from the previous quarter, my goals for the upcoming quarter, as well as any obstacles I might foresee and how my manager might be able to facilitate said goals. About half the time I'm not really too enthused for 4x4 time but it does help come merit increase or bonus time. I also do weekly 1on1s with manager using the manager tools format and I take notes during that so it's decent reference material as well.

[InternetExplorer 2,609]

Yeah, I'm being told to work inside of a very simplified project tracking system now. I was previously just bringing a paper agenda with all the things going on, and my boss made some irritating comments about it being printed, along with the vague criticism about finishing projects. The tracking system was only made available to upper management, so it was just generally obnoxious on my boss' part.

 

I'm looking at Villanova's Six Sigma Green Belt certificate, and the continuing education requirement is just asinine. $4400/3yrs to maintain the certificate. There's no way my company will pay for that.

[Napa Lite 3,278]

Yeah, that sounds like a lot and I have questions about how useful it would be in a non-production environment.

 

One thing I’m trying to get better at is not using my mouse when working in excel. Keyboard shortcuts are just so much faster and a lot more impressive when people see you working.

[Napa Lite 3,278]

Oh, I ended up pairing up with a girl dressed as “USA” on Saturday night to form the North American coalition. We came in 3rd overall out of 9 teams. It was fun. I don’t know how it ended up points wise but we got robbed in one event because the rules were unclear. Basically, you had a pile of hexagonal nuts and then you had to use a skewer to stack them as high as you could in a minute. A few teams had gone before us and the highest recorded score so far was 5 and so I got 6 on my first attempt but knocked it down going for 7 and wasn’t able to do any better. My teammate got 3. Then we’re told it only counts if it lasts until the end of the minute (which was not in the rules because I would have just stopped at 6 or at the very least been a lot more careful going for 7) so my 6 was DQ’d and I had to go again and didn’t do better than 3.

 

We had a medal ceremony where the medals were shot bottles of booze with bronze (it was actually copper but close enough), silver, and gold.

 

Got a lot of laughs with my “sorrey” bit to the point where everyone was eventually saying it. The events took about an hour and then it just devolved into our normal party of taking turns playing YouTube videos on the tv while having a dance party until 3:30 am. It was a fun time.

[InternetExplorer 2,609]

Yeah, that sounds like a lot and I have questions about how useful it would be in a non-production environment.

 

One thing I’m trying to get better at is not using my mouse when working in excel. Keyboard shortcuts are just so much faster and a lot more impressive when people see you working.

A bigwig at our custodian basically told me I need to do it. He is in the same boat, optimizing service with the production mindset.

 

I may just pitch doing the green belt to start, with the intention of letting it expire.