G*Star, He-Boss and Pennysaver was going to have a meeting right now. First they were going to sit in the meeting-room, but then they decided to go out – just stand right outside, have a smoke and have the 10 minutes meeting there. As they were going out I adressed myself to G*Star and said: hah. so, you’re going to have the meeting outside. It’s not good enough to be inside. G*Star didn’t respond right away, but He-Boss did. He had apparently heard me saying something, but didn’t hear what exactly I was saying. So he asked me what I’d said. I answered I’d just said something to G*Star, to let him know I hadn’t talked to him. Then G*Star reacted and told He-Boss what I’d said.

Halfway out the door, G*Star told He-Boss and Pennysaver that I had called them.. uhm.. not sure how to translate it into English… let’s say Loonie-smokers / crazy-smokers. I didn’t hear she tell them, but I realised seconds later. He-Boss came into the office again, piercing his eyes on me.

He-boss: have you called us loonie-smokers?
Me: nooo, I haven’t said anything. (trying to sound very convinsing, but with an undertone so they understood I had)

Everybody was laughing now, included the people at the support department.

He-Boss: let’s keep the door open, just as an punishment. (He knows I hate when the door into the office is open because people can’t close it)

He-Boss left, but Pennysaver closed the door.

Funny things do happen at the office as well. It’s not only chaos and bad things around here.

But… did everybody think it was that funny? I’m sure that He-Boss didn’t mind that I’ve called him a loonie-smoker, but I’m not so sure what Pennysaver thinks about it. She can be very… uhm… how to say it.. sensitive about what people thinks of her / call her. When she’d come back from the meeting, she came to me with a piece of paper she thought I needed. She didn’t sound very cheerful… I do say things like that directly to Pennysaver myself some times, but then I choose when and what I say. I’m not sure I want G*Star to say things like that on behalf of me. I want to be in control of the names / remarks I give Pennysaver. I see that I can’t control what others say… so then I just have to control what I say myself.

I can only hope that my remark (that wasn’t meant for her ears) didn’t do that much damage. After all, it was just a silly remark….

When you hire six new sales-persons, you’re bound to lose some. In the past, we’ve seen some people come and go. Some accepted the job, but didn’t turn up, some came and stayed a few days and left, some stayed for a while but was let go because they didn’t sell enough. One even left us just after a week, because he thought the product he was going to sell sucked and he wouldn’t be a part of such a crappy product! lol.

G*Star and I, we said when the six new guys started in August, that on would leave within two weeks. And by the end of this year, we would only be two left. And a week ago we thought that the Swede and the female Swede would be the first.  The Swede because we overheard him talking to Mohawk about having trouble selling. And the female Swede because she’s the only girl in the group.

We were wrong – on everything! Both are selling good and so far it looks like both are staying. Nobody has left yet either, so our prediction have been lousy all the way!

Do I dare to make another suggestion? Maybe the Redhead. I’m not sure what to base that suggestion on. He’s sold the least contracts… that’s all I have on him. I wouldn’t put all my money on it

Mohawk – he’s a man with the big, powerful words – and loud voice.

Because he is the head of sales, one of his main tasks is to lead his “crew”, to make them better and make them sell more products. And he’s doing a great job. The Swede didn’t do well the first weeks and was ready to throw in the towel. Mohawk had a chat with him (at least one, maybe more) and what happened? The Swede is now one of the guys whol has sold the most.

So here I am thinking… even though Mohawk sounds silly a lot and I laugh of him, maybe it works. Maybe this is what they need? Maybe they need the (un)controlled clapping, the screaming (because they need to let out the endorphines) and all the positive talk?

“This is so fantastic! it’s is just marvelous. It’s fucking brilliant. YEAH!!!”

Still, I can’t do anything but laugh, because no matter how effective it might be, it still sounds silly in my ears.

Mohawk sent us all this email today.

I’m sorry that those of you who shouldn’t feel guilty by this mail, gets it.
Ask yourself this question, guys? Am I such a good colleague that I pour out the rest of the coffee of my own coffee cup, when I’m the one who has drunken the coffee that was in it? Or am I so unintelligent that I don’t understand that the cup doesn’t empty itself?
One of the answers should apply on most of the guys who feel guilty by this email.
I hope, for Gods sake, that it is the first, because that can we do something about, it’s only the attitude that needs a change….
If the second answer is right, I only feel sorry for you….

And?
Have a great day, I know I am.

Best wishes the Mohawk

Mohawk’s language isn’t the best, but let’s not dwell on that. The mail was hilarious. “Or am I so unintelligent that I don’t understand that the cup doesn’t empty itself?” Whahahaha! It’s so funny. I laughed when I read that.

Right after I had read it, I emailed him back telling him how much I loved the email and that I thought it was nice that someone brought up the problems.

It’s good to know I’m not the only one that gets annoyed by these things. And it’s good to know I’m not the only one emailing everybody about it.

Mohawk is weird when it comes to some things (I’ll elaborate on that later), but I’m getting more and more found of him as the days pass!

Pennysaver and He-Boss gives me a lot of different stuff to do. He-Boss is the most creative. I do whatever he tells me to do, most of the time. But some times he gives me things to do, that I really, really don’t want to do. Like last week…

Someone, let’s call him X (because I have no clue on who he/she is), is staying in Oslo for two weeks, starting today. X is gonna work for our company for two weeks, I think.  So he needs a place to stay. He-Boss asked me to check out prices a hotel nearby the office.  I checked the price on that hotell, but also other hotels downtown, because the nearby hotel was very pricy.

After some days He-Boss contacted me again. He asked me to contact the nearby hotel, beat down the price and then book the room for two weeks.  I was like WTF? Beat down the price at a hotel-room! Nobody does that, or?

He-Boss: what was the price on the nearby hotel again?
Me: Let me see… 1690 nok a night.
He-Boss: try to beat the price down a bit… and then book it for two weeks.
Me: beat down the price? are you crazy?
He-Boss: no.
Me: you can’t beat down the price at a hotel-room. And I’m really bad at doing that I have to say.
He-Boss: ok. make Pennysaver do it. She knows how to do it.
Me: yeah, she’s better at that

Then I contacted Pennysaver and explained. She said she was going to call and ask if they have a room that wasn’t that price, but she wouldn’t try to get it cheaper than it already was. She thought the price was so stiff, that she wondered if they were going to put X in the spare room they have in their house.

Now I wonder, was it right of me to turn him down like that? Is it ok for me to say no, when my boss asks me to do something? I know I’m supposed to do what my boss tells me to do, but there is a limit to what I’m doing  – even though he is my boss.

I think I have the right to stop and say no when I think he’s out of line. Don’t you agree? I won’t accept everything and I don’t think I should either.

And to set things straight, I do in 97% of all cases, what he wants.

I know I have to be careful and not say ‘no’ too many times. Because if I do say ‘no’ more and more, it would be long before he thinks less of me. And I would like to keep the kind of work-relationship we have right now.

Heh. I just come to think about moive ‘the Devil wears Prada’. I’m so glad I’m not the Devil’s secretary. She was a bitch and wouldn’t accept someone to not do as she says. After seeing that movie, you’re really happy about the way things are. Things could be much, much worse!

I’ve been visiting my parents this weekend. So this morning I had to take a different bus to work. Brrr. It was so cold on the bus, I was freezing. It was so nice to come into the warm office, ten minutes late though.

It didn’t take long before my annoyance-level rose sky-high. Somebody had been on my computer. I got suspicious on what they had been doing. I found out quite quickly. Someone had updated my explorer from 6.0 to 7.0. Everybody knows that I run an online system, which I use almost daily, than doesn’t handle IE 7.0. I’ve had the problem before; someone updated my IE to 7.0 and we had to re-install 6.0.

I contacted Pho and asked if he had been doing something on my machine. He’s the one that does things like that. He hadn’t. Then I figured it had to be He-Boss. I checked my IM (Instant messenger), but he wasn’t there. So I asked Penny-Saver via IM about when he arrived.

Me: when does He-Boss come back?
Pennysaver: he’s delivering the kids; around 9 o’ clock.
Me: ok. You see, someone has installed IE 7.0 on my computer and then one of my online systems doesn’t work… *sigh*

Then I heard she laughed and came walking towards me.

Pennysaver: someone? (Still laughing)
Me: yeah, someone.
Pennysaver: but who does that? Nobody is here in the weekends, other than He-Boss then.
Me: I don’t know. Someone has logged on my machine using the administrator ID…
Pennysaver: Oh, He-Boss called me and asked for the administrator password!
Me: aha. Then it’s him. I don’t understand why he did it. I’ve had the same problem once before and we had to change back IE to 6.0.
Pennysaver: he should know about these things.
Me: He does!!
Pennyasver: oh. Then it goes in there and out there. (Pointing her hands to the head)

Pho came over and helped be get everything back to normal.

I don’t understand why He-Boss has to do such things. It’s not the first time he’s done something before thinking. I know I’m far from perfect myself (got a critique from He-Boss last week, not well hidden in a nice, useful tip), but I am constantly trying to improve myself. So I feel I have the right to complain on others. Hey, why else do I have this blog?

As soon as this problem was fixed Weed-head asked me if we had any milk for him. He, and probably some others at the other office, needs milk in their coffee. I said we didn’t, but I was soon going out to buy some groceries – and would then buy him some milk. First he said thank you. Then he complained that they always had to go out and buy their own milk. He said we would complain to Pennysaver or someone…

I talked to Pennysaver about right away. Her response was: I don’t feel sorry for them! Hahaha. I had to laugh when she said that. Originally, milk was just something He-Boss should have, but now everybody wants it.

That wasn’t the only thing Weed-head complained about. He had a really stupid client on the phone that annoyed him greatly. And I asked me some questions, I clearly should have been able to answer myself.

I concluded that Weed-head wasn’t in his best mood and warned G*Star via IM. She thought he was in a bad mood, because he didn’t get any chicks this weekend. I said I thought it was because of lack of smoking. She immediately bought that.

If not an annoying Weed-head was enough, one of my worst clients called me. Let’s call him Evil. He never presents himself by name, he only says with a sleazy voice; hi, it’s your dream-customer. *puke* This is how the conversation went:

Evil: Hi, it’s your dreamcustomer.
Me: Hi…. (Ready to vomit!)
Evil: is there something wrong? I can’t access internet.
Me: well, we are moving a lot of connections to a new platform; I guess you’re one of them.
Evil: you haven’t informed me about that before.
Me: yes we have.
Evil: when?
Me: I don’t remember the exact dates, but it has to do with the Cisco router we sent you.
Evil: oh… I see.
Me: I think I have to call you up. I got to check some things here.

Then I checked a few things with Daniel via IM and then called him back.

Me: have you restarted all your boxes (modem, firewall, router etc)
Evil: everything, but the Cisco router.
Me: Restart that too. (Trying not to sound too annoyed)
Evil: ok. I’ll take the modem once more too, just in case.
Me: Now, I see you got an IP-address.
Evil: I see that the lights on the modem are glowing where it should glow.
Me: Let me check if I can connect with your modem. (a pause). Yes I can, I see your modem.
Evil: I’m online now. Thank you.

O.M.G! Why restart your server, modem and firewall, but NOT your Cisco router. Where’s the logic in that? There is none! How can someone be so utterly stupid?

The Mother is not back from her holiday yet. She was supposed to be in today, but we got a rather crytpic email from Pennysaver last week, saying she woudn’t be in before wednesday (hopefully). Sigh. That means I got tasks that is her job. Nothing wrong about that. I got time to do that too. But it’s just that sometimes the tasks are just plain boring. Like the one I got today. I’m too busy, so why the hell am I writing here in stead of working? You tell me!

Let me end with another Dilbert-stripe

Just to give you an idea on how the Kid behave and give a perfect example on why he got the name he got, I’m gonna tell you what he just did.

the Kid: have you seen pictures from the airplane-crash? (reffering to the tragedy in Spain)
Me: uhm.. no, not really.
the Kid: uhhawww! (screaming with mouth wide open with chewed up bread-slice)
Me: oh my god (sighing and shaking my head)

See? This is what I have to live with day in and day out. He sits next to me, to the right.

Sometimes I feel like a head-mistress in a kindergarden. This is one of these days.

Today, when G*Star and I, took lunch, we walked into the kitchen, then sighed out loud. It was a complete mess! On the counter you could find butter, ham, Italian salad, cheese and the bread was not in its plastic bag. This could of course been ok if someone had been there making themselves lunch. But nobody was there, the kitchen was empty.

Me: are you going to eat that ham or the Italian salad? (talking quite loud, hoping the guys at sales  would hear me)
G*Star: no, I’m not.
Me: Oh, then I guess someone forgot to put it inside the fridge again then. (still loud)
G*Star: yes, I think so too. (lauging)

It annoys me so badly that people can’t behave in the kitchen. It’s mostly the guys in the sales department and the notorious sloppy kitchen guy, Bear, who works at support department.

Our kitchen is small and it gets messy easily, but it’s not under any circumstances a good excuse for being so damn sloppy.

We’ve had the same problem for quite a while. It expanded when we hired three young Swedes (sales guys), who didn’t understand the concept of a clean kitchen. One of them even told me that I should make a big sign in the kitchen saying ‘clean up after your self’. Oh god, I remember how loudly I sighed and then laughed, when he told me that. The tree Swedes left months ago and the kitchen got cleaner.

Now we’re back again… And the reason for it? It’s the six new sales people we’ve hired. Not the girl I think, but the rest of the bunch. And how do I know that? It’s simple math. The one that has lunch first, is the sales department.

Damn that sales department. They clap uncontrolled, talk loud and mess up the kitchen.

So, after lunch, I had to write an email to everybody – yet another time. It’s not the first time (only for the new guys) and it won’t be the last. This is what I wrote:

Hi,

When I went to lunch today the kitchen looked like a mess. Bread, butter and other things stood on the counter without anybody making lunch.

It’s nice if everybody put everything into the fridge again after use. Put the bread back in its plastic bag. Then it will be easier for others to make lunch. More pleasant too

And nobody wants to eat dry bread and sweaty cheese?

If everybody does that, you won’t get nagging mails from me in the future

Kind regards me

The messy kitchen brings out the kidergarten head-mistress in me. I can’t believe that grown up people have to be babysit like this!
I haven’t gotten any response yet from the sales department, but didn’t think I would either.

A while ago, I hung up this comic strip in the kitchen. It’s so fitting for our office. Guess who laughed? Only the girls!

Pennysaver sent me a job here the other day. A company had merged with another company last year and the Mother approached Pennysaver saying we would need a new agreement with the company. Pennysaver said an agreement had been made in October last year and it was here somewhere even if we couldn’t find it in the clients document archive.

Pennysaver sent me the job to find the signed agreement. I checked my letter files which contains agreements with no luck. I couldn’t find the agreement. So I returned the job to Pennysaver, saying I couldn’t find it and asked if I should contact them and arrange a new one.

Today Pennysaver returned the job to me again saying this:

The agreement came the 15th of October (last year), it was Stress who was master there. I guess it’s somewhere Try to find it first, at other alternative places hehe. He-boss has a pile with agreements at home too, nice if you cab ask him about it. I delegate this to you.

*rolls eyes*

The basic is: it’s somewhere. Find it!

Knowing it was Stress, who was in charge, doesn’t make it easier. He had no control over his own work and especially not the agreements he was set to get. He’s the one who could send out an agreement without make a job in our internal system. Because of that we had no idea which contracts that had been sent out. And there were no information about when the contract was received.

Luckily there is a job on this one, but it doesn’t help me much. It only says when the contract came in. Apparently it’s not landed on my desk, because it’s not scanned like I do with all incoming contracts!

So where the hell is it? According to Pennysaver, maybe at some alternative place. That alternative place is most likely in the basket case.

I remember cleaning up Stress’ desk. He had a lot of agreements on his desk when he left. I got the job to check them and see if they were scanned. I checked every one of them and most of it was copies of already scanned agreements.

How am I going to find an agreement that came almost 11 months ago which no one as any idea of where is? I hate tasks like this. It’s so utterly stupid.

This is a fine example of the chaos at work. Thank god, Stress isn’t working here anymore. It’s less chaos and fuckup now that he is gone.  

Hey-ho. The office slut is going to find her hat and turn into Sherlock Holmes.

Mohawk is a sales guy down to the bone. He is the visionary leader with the big words. “Do not stop, go on. Get that sale. You can do it”

Once in a while Mohawk takes all the sales guys into the meetingroom for a peptalk with everyone. What they exactly do in there I’m not sure of, but I can his voice quite clearly. He’s shouting.

In addition to the shouting, he makes everybody clap. Suddenly we can hear a wild applause. They are apparently cheering on each other and it’s a part of their peptalk.

Here the other day G*Star came up with the brilliant idea to start clap as well. When they clap, we clap. We is me, the Kid, G*Star and the two other guys at support. It might seem strange, but it’s really funny.

We have also come up with the idea to clap without them clapping as well; just clap because we want to. G*Star and myself, we were out on a five minute break around the block today, and on the way up I suggested we should start clap when we came into the office. And we did. As soon as we started the other guys at support started to clap as well. One of the new sales guys (too new to give him a suitable name, hehe) came walking through the office. He looked at us, but didn’t say anything. I bet he wondered what the hell we were doing. Me and G*Star laughed out loud.

We are oh so mocking the sales department and we fully enjoy it.