Dude, 'sall fucked up

I used to think there wasn't any 'politics' at work. I don't know if I was blind or shielded from them or what.  Work politics suck.  They're generally about personal power struggles and not motivated by a desire to help the company or it's employees.  Just mindless, pointless, arbitrary exertions of power.  Designed to frustrate and annoy under the guise of 'security' or what-have-you.

 

Huh, that's interesting. I think my company has adopted a Homeland Security sort of stance.  Which I think is horrendous. And terribly misguided and uninformed. The shit we're doing now seems like half-measures of progress (The owner recently commented to one of his most senior managers "You know what happens if you only go halfway home? You never get home." interesting point in light of my topic) We've finally got a new billing system, so far, its great. I can see how its going to be very useful and a definite time-saver once we get over the learning curve. It does everything from quoting to ordering to invoicing and beyond. You can track the whole job from start to finish.  Which means you have to do all quotes on it, which makes sense, fewer errors, greater consistency, and a standardized format across the company. But we didn't buy enough licenses to let everyone use it.  There's a dance of logging out, logging in, checking to see how many licenses are in use before you log in... blah blah blah. Fecking annoying is what it is. It's driving halfway home.

 

And we've got new computers, finally a standardized tower and programs so we can actually ghost the damn things. They're quite sweet. I love the new monitors. But I can't use Dvorak on them, it's verboten. See previous rant. And only one of the eight people in our office can use the FTP program at any one time. Again, not enough licenses. Just minor things, but they're frustrating and it's happening company wide, and everybody I talk to sounds like they're just FED UP with the nonsense. It's ridiculous, and so unnecessary. This is still a really good company to work for, but they NEED an HR person. The owner is not a very good manager in my opinion, my manager is good, but needs some direction. Actually, what he needs is to not feel like he's always under attack from his boss or our service dept.  I like the service guys, they're a great bunch, they're frustrated because their manager is trying to do everything himself, his actions proclaim he thinks they're incompetent even louder than his words, which leave little to the imagination.  Mr. Sunshine, he ain't. So shit's piling up on everyone's plates here, people are drowning, despair is setting in, apathy ain't far behind and what happens? LOCKDOWN!  Let's see what minor satisfactions do our employees have that we haven't crushed yet? Ooooh! Internet access!  Let's issue a proclamation outlawing it! Let's not just have a meeting to discuss the issue and advise we've had a policy change, here's the new policy, here's why we're doing it, and please sign on the dotted line. No, let's make them feel like criminals. Tell them we've been watching them for the last few months (huh, this internet usage tracking thing seems to work perfectly, but our website is still a piece of shit, and our online planroom doesn't work, and our DPS program is fucking up, and our email's full of spam, and our scanning equipment is ridiculously slow, but let's put those on the backburner - It'll take money and effort to fix those things, and that would only result in increased productivity and job satisfaction Let's shut down their internet instead.) THEN crack down, and spend a week watching them like a hawk.

 

Nice plan. Good management strategy. No, really. It's a tried and true strategy for breaking down people's morale and self-esteem. It's much easier to indoctrinate them then. I'm working in freaking Jonestown.

 

Ah, well. gotta go. I'm posting this through my email (which doesn't send anything anyways, I don't know why I bother) So I expect I'll hear about using company equipment for personal things.

 

Fuck it. Try and tell me THIS ain't work related!

 

Buster Fixxitt