Tag Archives: supervisor

Cubicle stalker…

Posted on by

I came back from lunch to find one of the more emotionally needy members of the team standing in my cube. You know the ones; they need special reassurance that they’re doing the things right… every time they do anything… regardless of how basic the task. Yeah. That guy. I’m sure you’ve met him.

According to sources in a position to know, he had been standing there for 15 minutes. Standing in my cube, while I was at lunch, for at least 15 minutes. Just standing there. And waiting. Standing there waiting to tell me that he had uploaded some documents to our network drive.

In the future, it would be completely appropriate under these circumstances to send me an email. Leave me a note. A voicemail I’ll even get eventually. Though really, you can feel free to upload files to the network to your heart’s content without my direct supervision. That’s probably another issue altogether, really.

I can’t fathom why, in the name of all things good and holy, it might have seemed like a good idea to spend 15 minutes standing in my cube waiting for me to come back from lunch. Were you expecting a treat of some sort? Up until today, that was the only 55 square feet of real estate in the entire building where I feel even a modicum of sanity. You’ve taken that from me now. The sanctity of my cube has been violated.

I can’t tell you how much I don’t need a cubicle stalker in my life.

Editorial Note: This is part of a continuing series of previously unattributed posts appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Friendly advice…

Posted on by

If you have a cube with a direct line of sight to the Executive Office of the UberBoss, it’s really best not to fall asleep watching the TV mounted to the wall across from you. It makes you look like a dumbass. Far more importantly, it makes me look like a dumbass.

Maybe I should just confiscate their desk chair tomorrow. It’s probably harder to fall asleep if you’re standing up… Though I’m not sure I’d be surprised to see it. I wonder if that’s even legal. I think that’ll be on the list of things to ask the lawyer tomorrow.

Editorial Note: This is part of a continuing series of previously unattributed posts appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Outlook…

Posted on by

I’ve been operating on the apparently misguided assumption that Microsoft Outlook was the standard issue email client for federal offices everywhere since the dawn of time… or at least the last 15 years, whichever came first. At least that was my assumption until I overheard this conversation this morning…

Supervisor: Your inbox filled up over the weekend. Make sure you clean it out and move large files to your archive folders so they’re not taking up space on the email server.

Employee: It’s not my fault my inbox fills up. If people didn’t wait till the last minute to send stuff in, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Supervisor: But if you move those big files out of your inbox *pointing at the screen* we can solve the problem.

Employee: But I need those files.

Supervisor: I know, but they’ll be saved in your personal files so you can still get to them.

Employee: Well, I asked to go to that Outlook class but didn’t get in. This isn’t like the old Outlook so I need training and it’s hard to get into those classes. They’re always full. I don’t know why people can’t just spread out when they send stuff in…

Sigh.

Is Outlook really so hard to use that 60 people a month are signed up for training on how to schedule meetings and set up personal folders? I’ve been using Outlook since I got my first “real” job in the summer of 2000… Not like this is exactly a new piece of software we’re dealing with here. Sure, it’s been updated a touch now and then, but it’s still the same old Outlook that it has always been.

I guess the real question in my mind isn’t so much why that many people are signed up for training as it is how someone gets to be a 40-something year old career bureaucrat without knowing how to use email?

 

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Is there anything better in the world…

Posted on by

Somewhere out there the wind is blowing. Somewhere the world is coming apart at the seams. The phone doesn’t stop ringing and email flies across the country. … Sometime between teleconferences you look up… and smile… A warning order rattles off the printer. A nod, a word, and you can throw a team into the fight. Your crew is busy… and you’re in charge. Some days you hold it together by sheer force of personality, but know what? You’re a goddamn emergency manager… Is there anything better in the world?