Work Rants

I would like to paraphrase an issue from our issue tracking system: Them : There was a problem with your shit over the weekend. Our stuff is inexplicably wrong and we did not change anything to affect it. We believe this is your fault.  Us : Actually, everything looks to be ok. Can we get some additional information to help figure out what happened?  Them : Bull-honkey! If nothing is wrong with your shit, why is our shit wrong? We didn't change anything! Plus, we check our stuff all the time wrong and it started this weekend. Here is a pile of information you have never seen before in no particular order, please sift through it and fix the problem.  Them : Fixing this is urgent to us , hop to it.  Them : Our group found the wrongness of our stuff is isolated to a small sub-section of data. Here it is. We did not change anything, so have you figure out why your shit broke yet? Us : Are you sure nothing changed? We double checked, but both our st...

At our institution, we have Microsoft Exchange for email. In know we should dump it for Google products, for the price alone, but that is neither here nor there. I am amazed at how many people do not keep their schedule in Outlook, even people who spend significant time in meetings. Not because there are lots of people; I am amazed by how inconsiderate it is. Plus, it forces people to send out emails like this: President Gigamass has charged us with addressing our issues with packing bags of meat. Consultants are available to meet with this group on Jan 8th at 5pm  Jan 10th at 4am Feb 29th at noon Please reply to me by yesterday and let me know which of these days are best for you to meet with the meat packers. Why do we do this? If you might ever be in a meeting, update Outlook or face the consequence of missing out on critical discussions because you never put that pelvic exam on your calendar. And BTW Outlook, quit changing my memory of the past. When I attend ...