Inside the Head of a TV Junkie

Yesterday, as I was walking from the parking garage to the office, I was following a woman.  She got to the door and had to rifle through her purse to find her security badge to open the door.  It looked like she was having a hard time so I figured that I would just use mine once I caught up to her.  As I get closer, she finally finds her badge to scan at the door.  I’m probably no more than 10 feet away from her and the door.  She barely opens the door and squeezes through as if opening the door all the way would cause all the cool air inside to escape or something.  Prior to this she has made eye contact with me but I guess holding the door open so that I don’t have to get my badge out is against the rules or something.  I couldn’t believe that she couldn’t wait the 10 seconds it was going to take for me to get to the door.  Ugh.  Sometimes I hate people.

I have to post tickets for things to get corrected at work with the IT programmers.  I programmed business rules in my old job so I kind of know how to include all the details that will be needed to complete the request.  Here’s an example of a ticket I opened the other week:

1.  Describe situation leading to the request and the business problem to be solved.

X-REF Entries are being truncated and causing rejections

2.  Detailed description of the enhancement.

The field in the X-REF table is too small to accommodate the location code required by the customer on the 210.  We need to send the complete code to keep these invoices from being rejected.

Example:

7854685

In the example above, the XREF entry for the consignee is DEMAND POINT(ALAM when what the customer needs to see is DEMAND POINT(ALAMEDA)

Today, my boss came running out of her office screaming like a crazy person. Everyone on the floor immediately took notice (as you can imagine). Turns out there was a mouse in her office and it had scampered across her feet. Ha! It’s still at large.

No 12 of 12 this month.  I wasn’t feeling much like taking pictures today and I always find it hard when it’s a work day to get 12 interesting photos.  If I had taken pictures today, you would have seen mostly photos of my desktop at work and the emails I answered all day.  Things at the job are going well but are also very crazy and almost too routine at the moment.

Let’s talk work for a moment, shall we?  Today was a very interesting day.  One thing I hate more than anything at work is when people don’t trust your judgement and second guess you for no reason.  Let me clarify.  If I had done something in the past that makes me less trust worthy, then I completely understand.  This is the second time it’s happened to me in the past 3 weeks.  Today’s episode was with a customer that is not very happy with my company and has actually ceased business until we fixed this issue.  I had taken the time last Friday to speak with the customer to make sure that I fully understood their wishes and wants.  I opened  a ticket to get the job done but nothing was worked on for this entire week.  I sent numerous emails and made various requests to get the ticket worked.  It wasn’t until today that it got any attention and that’s because a higher up was notified of the issue.  I try my hardest to make sure that doesn’t have to happen.

Anyway, the ticket I opened was very thorough and even so, more information was requested – but not from me!  Another person was asked to get more information and they ended up calling the customer to get it.  How do I know this happened?  I got a “nice” email from the customer asking why they were being asked for the information that they had already given to me.  Not only does this make me look stupid it makes the company look incompetent and unable to provide good customer service.  Maybe I’m just crazy but it really drives me nuts when this sort of thing happens.  Anyway, I sent a semi snarky email to the people involved but I doubt they’ll even care.  We’ll see what comes of it tomorrow.

First, I know I was supposed to Blog about tv last night, but I forgot. It will be forthcoming after work.

Okay, I cannot stand it when people do not have signatures setup on their emails. I want to know your title and your phone number. How else am I supposed to call you when you start ignoring my emails? Also, I would really like to know if I’m dealing with a manager or just a regular worker.

That is all.

I’m not sure what happened while I was away on vacation, but it appears that it is now OK to write entire emails within the subject line of an email. Ugh! There is very little I despise more than this habit!

Okay, these past few weeks at work have been sort of insane. Mostly, it’s been filled with coworkers that have decided to keep their brains at home.

Examples:

We got some new printers on the floor. When these printers need to refilled with paper, you have to make sure that you don’t move the paper adjuster to a size that doesn’t match what you’ve put in. I’ve seen countless coworkers standing an staring at the error message over the past two weeks not knowing what to do. No matter how many times they are told (or how many signs are posted) they just don’t seem to be getting it. Frustrating to say the least!

Another printer situation. If putting paper in tray 4 always causes the printer to jam… Stop putting paper in that tray!!!

Mailing invoices is something we frown on because it costs more than EDI or email. Sometimes we have no choice though. When your manager tells you to mail the invoices, don’t waste 4 hours of my day trying to figure out how to send them EDI when you already know it’s not going to work.

Finally, if a customer hasn’t paid some invoices and you’ve sent them at least 5 times, maybe it is time to pick up the phone and call them! Why are people so afraid of talking on the phone!?

Okay, that’s just a taste of what’s been going on the past few weeks. Hopefully people will get their acts together. I’m not holding my breath.