BF2S Forums I hate my job/I need a job/I've got an interview MEGATHREAD

People like to poke fun at government bureaucrats for this kind of stuff but honestly I see more of it from the corporate types.

I guess for inside a database, it doesn't matter how you order it because the computer sorts it the same regardless. For me, mm for filenames and mmm for printouts (I hate trying to figure out month from day sometimes, "5-01 or 1-05?!").

As a government bureaucrat my worst administrative nightmares happened when I worked as a consultant in the private sector. From clients with godawful senseless archiving, to projects within our business being subjectively ordered depending on the manager, each using non descriptive filenames on documents seemingly randomly placed in different locations.

In contrast in govt my stuff is neatly ordered and we have a separate document/archiving system for official stuff with clear guidelines on uploads. Oh, and everyone can write. No more glaring argument, spelling and style errors that burned my eyes every day when dealing with business people.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-31 06:56:48)

Larssen wrote:

As a government bureaucrat my worst administrative nightmares happened when I worked as a consultant in the private sector. From clients with godawful senseless archiving, to projects within our business being subjectively ordered depending on the manager, each using non descriptive filenames on documents seemingly randomly placed in different locations.

In contrast in govt my stuff is neatly ordered and we have a separate document/archiving system for official stuff with clear guidelines on uploads. Oh, and everyone can write. No more glaring argument, spelling and style errors that burned my eyes every day when dealing with business people.

Welcome to my hell.

It becomes a concern when suddenly you need to dig through 15 years of documents.

I often think back to the irony of that ~2005 paper talking about how the US would handle a coronavirus pandemic very well compared to the rest of the world. We have the resources!

Larssen wrote:

As a government bureaucrat my worst administrative nightmares happened when I worked as a consultant in the private sector. From clients with godawful senseless archiving, to projects within our business being subjectively ordered depending on the manager, each using non descriptive filenames on documents seemingly randomly placed in different locations.

In contrast in govt my stuff is neatly ordered and we have a separate document/archiving system for official stuff with clear guidelines on uploads. Oh, and everyone can write. No more glaring argument, spelling and style errors that burned my eyes every day when dealing with business people.

My father was in the foreign office, everyone used their own system for paper files, each time someone moved the incomer had to refile all their documents. Everyone was on a four year rotation.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Larssen wrote:

As a government bureaucrat my worst administrative nightmares happened when I worked as a consultant in the private sector. From clients with godawful senseless archiving, to projects within our business being subjectively ordered depending on the manager, each using non descriptive filenames on documents seemingly randomly placed in different locations.

In contrast in govt my stuff is neatly ordered and we have a separate document/archiving system for official stuff with clear guidelines on uploads. Oh, and everyone can write. No more glaring argument, spelling and style errors that burned my eyes every day when dealing with business people.

My father was in the foreign office, everyone used their own system for paper files, each time someone moved the incomer had to refile all their documents. Everyone was on a four year rotation.

Eh well, I probably entered government some 50 years after your dad's retirement, we don't use physical documents anymore. The only moment a printer is needed is when someone needs an instruction/speaking notes for public appearances.

Rotations here have been changed to 5-7 years.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-11-01 10:28:54)

lol did they get a plumber in to do that? What a cowboy...

Dilbert_X wrote:

My colleague really is leaving, his job has been advertised and the description doesn't cover half of what he does.

I saw him and his manager talking and going through all the projects which need to be delivered in the short term, with his manager getting paler and paler - never seen an Irishman go pale before. Hopefully he'll rape the company on consultancy work, they deserve it.

I had a chat with my colleague, it turns out he gave the company 2.5 months notice, so they could hire a replacement and there'd be time to train them up - 30+ years of accumulated knowledge in unique equipment and processes amounts to a black art you can't find in a textbook, plus the products themselves are not trivial to design and develop. He also agreed the advert doesn't cover half of what he does.

Buuut the bright spark who thinks he's in charge of everything butted in and advised, without any clue of what my colleague actually does, that he'd be easy to replace and having just failed to recruit a simple test technician he had loads of CVs on his desk and would be able to pick someone out no problem.
So the time has passed, the pile of CVs amounted to nothing, the job has just been advertised covering much less than is needed and he's leaving before anyone comes in, not that its very likely as there's probably no-one in the country who could make a start on it and if they do chances are they already have a better job.
He's been asked to stay on another few months to train whoever any replacement is but has told the company to get lost.

Meanwhile the company has managed to hire two more managers and a QA guy who is doing well enough to run a $150,000 mercedes.
Not sure what he's going to QA with two key business units going down the pan, should be fun to watch.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-11-04 03:09:19)

Anxiety can hit you when its least expected, weird.

My irreplaceable colleague is now gone, the management team has just woken up to the idea that maybe he needs to be replaced.
In the meantime there is a lot of work that needs to be covered just to keep things ticking over.

I've given them a big fat nope to dumping his admin tasks on me, many of which I used to do.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-12-07 00:12:10)

I'm already charging contract rates, I'm paying too much tax half way through the year and its about time I spent the rest of the year dead for tax reasons.

At this point its just fun to watch people who've been snooty and offensive turn different colours when they realise how fucked they are. I wonder how the CEO is going to react when he discovers the one worthwhile product line, worth millions in annual revenue, and the one which got his ugly mug in the business pages thanks to it being useful in the fight against COVID might as well be shut down.

I'm only really going in to have access to the machines to make my own bits and pieces, also the coffee machine makes good coffee.

I could grind out a few more hours doing tedious admin crap, but the people are obnoxious, miserable and ungrateful so I think its time they experienced some pain.