Money to burn

I think I’ve mentioned the daily sales report Mike puts together for the higher-ups and e-mails them every morning. We have been asked repeatedly to make this print all on one page, despite the fact that anyone can do it if they just LEARN HOW TO USE THEIR PRINT SETTINGS . So, we’ve made it work, but by the time you get to the end of the month, you’ve got a pretty sizable report on your hands and the print-size gets pretty small packed into one page.

So this morning, we get an e-mail asking us if the report can be printed on several pages (in direct opposition to the previous order) because the president, Bill, wants it to be more readable.

*sigh*

So Mike sets it for that and sends it on. They print a copy out and decide it’s not aesthetically pleasing enough printed on four sheets and taped together. Their solution for this? Adjust your zoom in Excel and just look at it at any size you want on your computer. No. Grin and bear it and deal with the 4-page printout? Don’t be silly. We need to BUY A PRINTER that will print at this size. Which means a 24” wide-format printer like graphic design departments use to print out small posters. $2500 investment.

So. He. Can. Print. An. EXCEL. File. A. Couple. Times. Per. Month.

Let me state this now. If I am here long enough to be up for a raise, and they don’t give me one, there is going to be a long and detailed discussion about how if they have enough money to buy this printer on a whim when there are several free solutions lying around, they can afford my raise.


While we’re on wasted money, and it’s a pay day, let me just toss this in. Our paychecks come in two envelopes. What the hell? They come from the place that prints them in a windowed envelope with the printing on the inside to make them impossible to read through. Then we pay for someone’s time here to stuff them in another envelope and seal them then deliver them to us. Now, my tree-hugging nature aside, just from a money standpoint, they pay the printing place to stuff the checks in envelopes—which I know has an added cost associated with it—then they pay man hours and material to do it again.

I hate.