What happened at work today?

[Hollylane]

A space for work place humor, venting about the management/co-workers/work policies, giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done, and things overheard on the job...Etc...

[Hollylane]

Today, I heard a co-worker, Matt, struggling to control a call, with a customer who had apparently dove down not one, but twenty rabbit holes of unnecessary explanations about transferring his service. Matt finally placed the customer on hold with an exasperated look, and then I heard him say under his breath...

"Okay, penalty hold for you sir, for calling to transfer your service while apparently smoking crack!"

[The JD]

Today I found out I get to leave work an hour early. Unfortunately, there were only 20 minutes left of my workday when I found out.

[Hollylane]

A few days ago, one of our supervisors decided that for all of our hard work and dedication, they would give us a food reward (common practice in call centers), and sent out an exuberant message about the bagels that they had placed at both ends of the call center for us. Anyone who approached the tables found, uncut bagels with zero toppings available, and returned to their desks shaking their heads...This annoyed me enough to run to the grocery store on my 20 minute break, and buy cream cheese. Once this arrived, and my co-worker, Matt, had sent out an additional email letting people know it was there, and thanking me, the bagels were quickly demolished. Okay, I admit it, I was ungrateful, and I showed this by whispering to Matt: "Even prisoners are served water with their moldy bread crusts.."

Today was the last day of work, for a pretty young lady, who has worked for the company exactly 2 months (6 weeks of those 2 months were in training), as a temporary part-time employee. She is going on to a bright career of being a softball bat tester (apparently, her first job was with our company, because she has been touring the world playing softball since graduation, last year) for a local manufacturer. The same supervisor who supplied our last "treat", decided to provide a treat to send her off. Her going away was celebrated with dozens of fancy donuts (no grocery store donuts for her), gallons of Starbucks coffee, bagels and cream cheese. She was also allotted time during our team meeting today, for her going away speech.

Yesterday, an excellent employee, who has been with the company for 10 years, left for an amazing new job. No one (other than those that were close with her) knew about it, until we read these words in our interoffice info line newsletter:

"Janice Wilson (not her real name) is no longer employed with _ _ _, we wish her well."

I only have one primitive response to all of this...and it is a gigantic WTF????

[RNguy]

I dont know but ill find out when i go into work in 2 hrs.
Im sure it will be a day of running codes and stroke alerts and drunk traumas that wrecked on the atv or mva, lots of crap cleaning and med giving.

[Gemme]

Yesterday, I got to be the good guy hero type person.

AND

I left 15 minutes early.

That doesn't happen often, so I'm relishing it.

[firegal]

5 am and the city is FINALLY quiet.

3 day weekend and folklife festival here in seattle......the peeps were busy.....very busy!

Glad I get to go home in 2 1/2 hours......but who,s counting?

[Cid]

I was telling a guy at work that I need a new roof on my house and don't know how the hell I'm going to pay for it. He told me about a program that the government is doing where people who have lower income can apply for assistance in repairs to their home. I went on the site to apply for help and it said they are no longer taking applications.

Just my luck

[Andrea]

On Tuesday and Wednesday there was no access to the computer drives so there was nothing to print. Thursday the drives worked but printing didn't.

Access to computer drives AND the printer were working for the main part of Friday. I worked as fast as I could for the few hours I had available. Then the computer started freezing up and I suspect there may have been more issues after I left for the day.

Let's not even talk about all the work that disappeared from the computer during this fiasco. No, IT doesn't think they can get it back.

WTHeck?? Don't we do back ups?

I was very happy to be leaving for a three day weekend.

[RNguy]

This has been a fabulous uneventful night for me and the trauma ward and I love it ... Rare night indeed for us

[girl_dee]

crazy chaos from 7:30 till noon

lunch from noon to 1

crazy chaos from 1 till 5:30

then a mini hurricane whipped through and the power went out

Fun day

[PearlsNLace]

Only 2 patients where nasty today. And I got to go home 2 hours early. That never happens. Yay. It felt like almost a day off it was such a difference. Nice.

[RNguy]

Originally Posted by PearlsNLace

Only 2 patients where nasty today. And I got to go home 2 hours early. That never happens. Yay. It felt like almost a day off it was such a difference. Nice.

I'm happy Youre an RN now

[RNguy]

Well tonight I'm the charge RN guy on the trauma ward
Apparently everyone is drinking at home bc we havent got a single trauma thus far
Its a great night here , someone has the cdiff though bc they are shittin through the moon and it smells like cdiff same pt has pseudomonas bc it smells like that too
You know you're a good nurse when you can smell what bug the pt has

[Gemme]

Yesterday was interesting.

A vendor was waiting for me half an hour before the store opened, it was crazy busy (luckily there were two of us working), I got to be a meanie poo poo head to the customers (legally it's part of the contract they signed...but in their eyes, that's what I am), another vendor that we've been waiting months for them to come finally came, the city turned off the water due to work on a leak up the road and one of our mechanical rooms flooded because the change in pressure made the backflow pipe dump. Luckily only stuff belonging to the store was affected but it was close. Like, an inch and a half away from me having to contact a customer and do a report and tedious paperwork kind of close. Still, I'm having to wait and see if I have to damage out any of my inventory. Cardboard doesn't work well with water.

[femm_cb]

One of my staff gave me their notice on Wednesday evening. Their last day is TODAY. Whatever happen to giving your employer two weeks notice instead of two days?

Now I have to scramble to find her replacement. Which is hard because she was in the middle of a few projects.

Now a good way to start my weekend

[Hollylane]

During our team meeting today, the team building game was America's Top Model, which consisted of three teams, each team had a model, 1 person dressed the model, and the team came up with 1 person's narration while the dressed model walked the call center. I dressed my model up in toilet paper as the Statue of Liberty, who then "traveled" from the west coast to New York, stopping in several states along the way (example: over top of her tiara, she had a cowboy hat, that she tossed off for Arizona, to represent Tucson's La Fiesta de los Vaqueros). Our team won, and over all, it was a lot of laughs.

But for me, it is difficult to get involved in these games. Some people truly enjoy them, but it is really not my bag, and generally sends me into a negative space, because I don't like to be forced into things that I don't enjoy, or wouldn't normally volunteer for. I'd rather be a spectator. So, I stayed out of the photos by jumping in to volunteer to be both the photographer and the videographer, quickly decided who would be the model, to avoid the "cat-walk", and chose to be the "dresser" to avoid being the commentator. It worked out okay, but I was relieved when it was over, and the people who are extroverts were done being the center of attention.

One of our co-workers retired today, after 25 years with the company. Because we all know how much Sue loves everything Christmas, our co-worker, Carol, read The Night Before Christmas at the end of the team meeting. She frequently reads children's books to us at meetings, whenever she can find a reason to. I know I sound like the Queen of Grumpyland, but frankly it annoys me, because she reads to us like we are a group of preschool children. So, I did my best to look like I was listening in the corner, but was actually reading a book on my Kindle.

I'm glad the day/week is over. Today was just a bit too much for me.

[FemmeItalian]

Annoying....

A couple employees (I have them in lead positions) upset about some decisions I've had to make and having a bit of attitude.

So....next week, I need to deal with them......oh joy.


I keep this quote by Colin Powell on the wall next to my phone......


[SIZE="2"]"Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."

Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. It's inevitable if you're honourable. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: You'll avoid the tough decisions, you'll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted, and you'll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance because some people might get upset. Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying not to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally "nicely" regardless of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people you'll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.[/SIZE]


GOOD

Last week ended pretty rough...and carried over to the start of this week.
The flip side is that I was able to get my mind wrapped around a few other things.

Information from my team was needed in very short order. I gathered a few individuals Wed. morning... and they put all the information together. I presented it both Wednesday and Thursday. The program managers liked the format and the level of detail provided. So much, that they decided this morning they want more items added to the list and have it presented to the Product Line VP and his deputy Monday morning at 9...so we are working tomorrow morning to put this together and wrap a pretty bow around it. Before I leave work tomorrow, I will submit these guys for a cash award.

And for me.....Guess I'll need to buy a new suit to wear on Monday.....everything does have a silver lining :-)

[Gemme]

It was sooo cool!

I got to be part of a semi-complicated scheme to surprise my customer's wife.

With her brand new car! Convertible, even!

It was purdy too, even though Miatas are accordions when they get hit.

I better get a new car on MY 65th birthday, dammit.

[Hollylane]

Another 130 calls kind of day...My eyeballs are tired...Time to start winding down my wired/tired brain....