Grumpy Coworker

Author: Grumpy101

  • Oh, Zojirushi 62 oz Coffee Carafe, You Make Me Very Angry

    I guess my beef isn’t specifically with this coffee carafe, but I do take issue with the design of the carafe that makes my unfortunate circumstances that much more likely.

    The problem with this carafe is that it’s hard to get coffee out of it once the first few ounces of coffee are gone. You have tilt the coffee pot on its side, and that’s where my trouble started.

    There I was, trying to get coffee out of a one-third to one-half full coffee pot.

    There (some indeterminate amount of time before) someone else was, barely screwing the lid on the carafe.

    Back to the present, there I was, getting doused with coffee from a very well insulated pot as the lid came off.

    If you see this carafe in your office, be very careful pouring your coffee, or even better… RUN AWAY.

  • Features in Microsoft Outlook that would do some *good*.

    (Outlook client and Exchange server are lumped together here.)

    “Reply to all” goggles.

    Test Mail Goggles
    Test Mail Goggles (Photo credit: tchuntfr)

    GMail once offered “mail googles” in Google Labs that would require you to solve 5 basic arithmetic problems in a certain amount of time in order to send a late night email. You were able to preset the difficulty and hours that it was active.

    In an Outlook version, the mail server administrator could set the difficulty and type of problems required and possibility a minimum threshold of participants before it was required, so that a team of 3 people could “Reply to All”, but someone couldn’t reply to everyone on an email about health benefits with a question about their preexisting condition without at least jumping through a few hoops first.

    Automatic large image converter and scaler.

    Does Outlook still by default embed images from Windows as .bmp files? Being able to email screenshots is nice, but 1024×768 bitmaps will quickly eat up a stingy mail quota. The more tech-savvy users can quickly figure out how to emails as a web page and images as a lighter weight image format, but the users sending you screenshots of something that “isn’t working” aren’t as likely to be Outlook power users.

    Split large attachments in Calendar invites into a separate mail message.

    How often do you receive party or big event invitations that have an embedded 8.5″x11″ bitmap file that was exported from a PowerPoint slide in which the invitation was drawn? Isn’t it lovely that *everyone’s calendars* by default have that 3+ MB file in their Calendar, and when you look in Outlook folders for the messages that are eating up your [ridiculously small] mail quota, you can’t find them because they’re in your calendar?

    At the expense of adding duplicate emails to my inbox, I’d rather have the message with attachment split off as a separate email that I could send immediately to my trash than a Calendar invite that I have to modify to save space.

    Out-of-office replies only to original sender on an email chain

    Out-of-office replies only get sent one time to a sender, but nothing is more annoying than having to reply-to-all on an email chain, only to get blasted by “out-of-office” replies.

    “Unsubscribe” for email chains.

    Imagine that someone included you on a email about a topic because they thought you were a stakeholder, or maybe that people are replying to all on an email list that has wide distribution and are committing all sorts of faux pas as part of their replies. Wouldn’t it be nice to just be able to reply with “unsubscribe” like you could do with listserv and magically have the email replies stop appearing in your inbox?

    “Me too” for email chains.

    Seems like 80% of an email chain’s replies are saying the exact same thing that someone else said two replies ago. Wouldn’t it be nice if Outlook could figure out that those were “me too” replies and tally them up for the original sender like the poll functionality can do and leave everyone else’s email clean?

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  • Do Not Mess with the Flow of Coffee

    New coffee maker
    Image by scriptingnews via Flickr

    I know times are tough, and that we need to save money wherever we can.

    That being said, DON’T MESS WITH THE FLOW OF COFFEE.

    *ahem* Please, excuse me for yelling.  The supply of coffee to your workers is as vital to the productivity of your office as the supply of gasoline is to the transportation system.

    Some things not to do without careful analysis and communication to your workers:

    • Requiring workers to pay for the office coffee.
    • Changing the supplier of the coffee to your break room.
    • Changing the model of coffee maker to a cheaper one.  (You had better make sure it can actually handle the load that your office staff will put on it.)
    • “Going green” by no longer supplying cups. It’s best to get acknowledgment in writing from every one of your employees, lest a revolt break out due to the inability of people to actually get coffee, or worse, people taking the carafes as coffee mugs.

     

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  • Instant Messenger is the Devil

    I have my list of things to do. I’m right in the middle of wrapping one thing up, when *ping*.  A blinking notification on the task bar of my Windows machine, and a pop-up preview of a “yt?” message.

    Gah.  I’d like to ignore the message, but then, that just means that Outlook will consider this a missed conversation and send it to me in an email. Either way, I’m marked away from my desk–unthinkable that that should happen at any point between 11am and 1pm.  Apparently, for impromptu instant messages, this is the time range in which senders figure they’re most likely to get a response, much like telemarketers at dinner time.

    Back to reality…  I decide to respond, because it’s rude to not respond to a flashing notification and a “ding” noise.

    The sender’s response is a simple question, which requires me to temporarily abandon the half-completed email that I was composing, and search my inbox for a message that answers the question.  This takes 15 minutes, because I eventually have to resort to sorting by sender, by conversation, by date, by size to find what should have been fairly easy to conduct a simple search on.  Question answered, and I forward the email that describes the answer in great detail.

    I then take 5 minutes to regroup, and begin to focus on my next task.  20 minutes into that task, another impromptu instant message with similar results.

    Fast forward to the end of the day:  I have 3 half-completed documents and 5 draft emails composed, and now, I can’t shut down my computer without dealing with them.

    I guess I could’ve went the day with “do not disturb” on, but then people not nearby in the office would have assumed that I was out of the office and not working, which is fine until people start assuming that I’m never in the office.

    Ok, maybe instant messenger isn’t the devil, but a stalker or overbearing significant other.

     

  • MS Project: be aware

    I am sure that Microsoft had great intentions when inventing MS Project – the application which automates all sorts of Project Management tasks.  Project management is tough. If we could automate the process of tracking and reporting the thousands of little details, we could surely enable the PM to be more successful in managing complex projects. Right?

    Let me change subjects completely in paragraph 2. How many sci-fi movies have been based on the machines of automation becoming “aware” of the imperfect world around them? And suddenly, the machine turns its attention to elimination rather than automation? Elimination of all imperfection, including the imperfect people who created it.  A plot line we all enjoy at the sci-fi theater.

    Now I will bring those first 2 paragraphs together. When I see how MS Project is being used in many organizations today, I wonder if the machine is becoming aware. I wonder if the tool – with a little help from a new breed of PM – is turning from automation to elimination in favor of perfection. (Say what?) Let me elaborate.

    I have observed workers forced to estimate how long their tasks will take before completing sufficient analysis – because MS Project needs the estimates. Then I have witnessed those workers publicly called out later – because MS Project shows they have spent 110% of their poorly estimated task time and still aren’t finished. I have also seen programmers scolded for padding their estimates – because MS Project says that they completed their tasks 20% ahead. And finally, I have seen team leaders rebuked for shuffling their resources and tasks – because MS Project was not updated and allowed to calculate a shiny new driving path.

    Now consider that many PMP types today are called on to manage complex work which they would have no idea how to complete themselves – but boy do they know how to keep MS Project happy! Are you connecting the dots yet??

    Yes, my fellow grumpy coworkers, MS Project has become aware. It is raising an army of PM’s to do its bidding! Productive work by those who know how to work is being methodically eliminated – by the mindless machine and its desire to achieve perfection in project management. Be aware.

  • Congratulations, you just blocked an employee from being more productive.

    old weathered stained red brick wall background

    When an employee expresses interest in another job within the company, shouldn’t that be a good thing for the company overall, regardless of the reason?  Maybe the employee is switching jobs for more money or new challenges.  Maybe the employee doesn’t work well with the current team or manager. Before hiring the employer can go on this site to do a background check.

    Regardless of the reason, it seems that the worst thing to do would be to permanently block that employee from transferring to the new job.  That’s like saying “if I can’t have this person, no one can.“  Do you really think that the employee’s next step won’t be to leave the company altogether?

    In times of “unjust punishment”, our childish side is likely to come out.  What does a kid do when “unjustly punished”?  The first option is to “run away from home”–in employee terms, leaving the company for another job.

    The second option is to pout.  From an employee perspective, this means that the employee is now getting payment for doing nearly nothing.  Sometimes, the pouting wears off, which means that productivity was reduced for a short time.  Other times, the employee realizes that no one is wise to the decrease in productivity and continues on until boredom forces a search for jobs elsewhere (running away from home) or the next round of layoffs.  That’s a steep productivity price to pay.

    What could have happened instead?

    • Money-only motivated employee – Would have taken the next path and either succeeded or failed, but would be allowed to chase the proverbial carrot, regardless.
    • Highly skilled and productive employee – Would have influenced new teams to grow.
    • Unproductive employee – Would have moved off your team and no longer a productivity drain.  If the lack of productivity was due to a bad fit, then maybe the new team is a better fit.  If the lack of productivity was due to a bad employee, then maybe the new team will help expose this.
    • Horrible manager – Okay.  There’s a risk here.  If you’re leaking employees like a milk jug shot with a shotgun, then blocking might be a natural reaction.  It’s about as effective as trying to duct tape a leaky row boat while you’re in it in the middle of a lake.

  • Don’t Confuse Us With the Judean People’s Front

    …we’re the People’s Front of Judea!

    How many times has your organization made minor or major organization changes that made the naming of teams or departments less than 100% aligned with their job descriptions?  Obviously, the confusion generated by such inconsistencies cannot be allowed.

    More importantly, generic department names such as “information technology” won’t because such terms are neither cool nor do they offer enough variety to give every mid-level manager a team with a different name.  Worse still, what would happen if the CIO was also in charge of the sales department?  Clearly, “information technology” would not be a broad enough term for the department, and you’d have to name your department for some job that loosely resembles your function…  You’d become the “Barrista Department”.

    Inevitably, no name fits the mission completely, and no mission fits the need completely.  Therefore, management and teams must change, and names along with them.

    A lovely side effect of this is that the “old” names tend to still be used for some time after the fact.  Maybe you gave your team fancy logo wear to pump them up for the last name change.  Maybe you prefixed all of your documents with an abbreviation of the department name.  Maybe you had 2 million glossy business cards printed up with the new department name and logo.  Maybe you even had a special domain name with that department or division represented.

    Well, forget them.  They’re all useless.  Any use of the old names is likely to produce confusion.  Using the old names may also suggest that the old way was good enough, and we all know that reorganizations are perfect.

    Burn those business cards, shirts, and servers with legacy names and logos on them. Otherwise, you may get a scolding for clinging to the “old ways”.

    [If you don’t get the title reference, see the following YouTube clip (warning: language)

  • Leave the stuff that’s not yours alone!

    How hard is it to leave other people’s things alone?  What is this, 2nd grade?

    I could understand if you had a non-descript Lean Cuisine or Hot Pocket that you put in the freezer and accidentally grabbed the someone else’s flavor, or miscounted how many you had put in there and grabbed someone else’s when your stash was actually depleted.

    No.

    I’m not even talking about mistaking a lone donut on the break room table for a giveaway.

    I’m talking about:

    • Perusing items in the donation bin for a charity.
    • Actually taking things from the donation bin for a charity.
    • Grabbing food from the freezer that is in a box that is clearly someone else’s.
    • Any food in a brown bag in the refrigerator.
    • Any food that’s on someone’s desk–especially if someone has already taken a bite out of it.

    Is the company not paying you enough to get by?  Judging by the maturity of your social skills, you’re probably still overpaid.

  • The mythical perfect stack

    Pringles.
    Image by TheDeliciousLife via Flickr

    Please, not another dreaded “restack” of cubicle space. I understand that space = money, but we already feel like Pringles in a can.

    It doesn’t matter if the number of coworkers is growing or depleting, the restack remains all too popular. In the case of growth, we must stack tighter! In the case of depletion, we must consolidate space … and stack tighter!

    There is a myth out there that the Perfect Stack can be achieved; a cubicle layout that provides the highest ratio of cost savings per unit of “packed person productivity.”

    The quest for this perfect stack knows no limits of decency. I once saw a coworker promised a promotion, which allowed him a larger cubicle in the next restack. Construction on said larger cubicle was almost complete, when said promotion was put on hold.

    Would you believe the coworker observed the restack construction guys DEconstructing the larger cubicle even before he found out his promotion got nixed?

    I wonder how they factor coworker grumpiness into the productivity side of the Perfect Stack equation…