Kicking the keystone

More news from Tyler Gifts...

Poor Lou. Lou's official position is something like "Administrative Assistant" to Bill, but he really ends up being more of a go-fer. Bill needs Satellite radio installed in his car, Lou does it. Bill needs someone to pick up his dry-cleaning, he sends Lou. Funny thing is, because Lou basically does everything for Bill and all the VPs, he has access to a lot of important information. He has all of their e-mail logins and passwords, he has all of their corporate credit card numbers, he's been to all of their houses. If/when he leaves, they're going to have to go through a lot of trouble to clean things up in the wake.

So the other day, Bill flies to the Carolinas to visit his parents. Before going, he tells Lou that he wants him to come into the office on Sunday and print out his boarding pass and fax it to him so he doesn't have to wait in line. Now, this is asinine for so many reasons that I won't even bother to list them. Lou complains to John and John replies, "24-7. Your job is to kiss Bill's ass 24-7."

So Lou, having all the company resources at his fingertips, decides that's fine, but he's going to do it his way. He proceeds to buy a $200 printer/scanner/fax for his home computer with the company's money.

Hope your boarding pass was worth $200, because that's what you paid Bill! Loser.

Oh, and Lou applied for 15 other jobs in the half hour after his conversation with John. I am SO amused.

The snake eats it's own tail

More news from Tyler Gifts...

Franz and John are both VPs and have been competing against each other for a long time. Franz strikes the most blows because John is too busy working to acknowledge him most times. John also has the ear of the president, Bill, so he doesn't have to really worry about this "climber."

I mentioned in a recent post how Franz had sent Rananah for training on the Tyler database before she was really ready, before she had been there long enough to know enough about the company to even really understand what it was she was learning. You see, originally the idea was for her to go with Fred the IT guy since he was the one that really would benefit from the training and she would get a general idea of what was going on. That was, until Franz saw his opportunity to become the Wormtongue to Bill's Theoden.

Franz suggested to Bill that Rananah should go to the training alone and that she could come back and train Fred with all the knowledge she gained. It would save money to send only one person, it would keep one more employee in the corral for those three work days, and Franz would score favor in Bill's eyes. He did all this behind John's back, and scheduled the trip a week before Fred could go to seal the deal. Of course, Rananah went and by no fault of her own, understood almost nothing of what she was there to learn. So she came back a little more knowledgeable but in no condition to teach Fred anything.

Fred, John and Bill have a weekly meeting, and in that meeting the subject of training Fred came up. John turned to him and asked, "has Rananah started training you about how the database works with the Amazon feed?"

Fred replied flatly, "You know she can't do it."

And John fired back, "But Franz said she was going to train you..."

Point: John.

Later that week, Franz instructed Carly to begin deleting old products from the database, despite the fact that everyone had been told by the database expert that this should never be done. Fred found out about it and went to let John know the deal. They ran into each other in the hall as John was walking with Bill to lunch. Fred explained the situation, and John gave a deep sigh and said -- to Fred, but plenty loud for Bill to hear, "Don't you love it when non-technical people empower themselves to make decisions abut things they don't understand?"

Point: John.

Mind you, I have little love left for John. All reports I am getting say that he is molding himself into what Bill would have him be -- something he managed to resist most of the time I was there. But the fact is, Franz can't be trusted any further than Rupaul can pitch a Volkswagen, and I'll be quite satisfied to see that climber lose his grip on the rungs and take the long fall. The image of him having to interview at another company damn near puts me into a laughter-coma every time.

Multilingual Mat

NOTE TO SELF: It might be good to avoid using 'hood lingo - even in jest - at the office.

The president of the company came into our area today to ask one of my coworkers a question. As he was heading out the door, another coworker came in looking for one of the other people in our area. He asked where she was and I replied, "Ah don' know, she muss be hidin' from yo' ass." As I turned to smile at him, I glanced by the door and saw the president still standing there.

Can I make good new-guy impressions or what?

Ancient History

For those who don't know me as well, Tyler wasn't my first interesting job. In face, I had two post-college office jobs before that pushed me to nearly leaving the office world altogether. I took a year off to become a framing carpenter which was a sweet gig in every respect except for bill-paying.

Anyway, one of the previous jobs was at a subsify publishing company called Dorrance Publishing. I'm not going to say too much about them, because that is the real name of the company, and I intend to post links to their site. However, it doesn't take too much thought to form your own opinion of that place from what you see.

My main colleague at Dorrance forwarded me this gem today that I just had to share with you for a chuckle. I give you, The Ninjew.

Sometimes people make me smile

Remember the guy that tried to lure me into his pyramid scheme when I was job hunting? At the end of that post, there is now a comment from somebody that was searching for info on that guy's company and found my post. Isn't that interesting? I mean, he has a site dedicated to his business, and I have two posts in a blog that gets very little traffic, and I come up high enough in the search to get traffic? That's killer! Hopefully it's an indicator of how sad JR's business is.

In other news, I wish there was a way I could link you to Tyler Gifts' website without revealing their true identity and opening myself up for a slander suit. From what I hear, the new girl - who was hired to do web design - doesn't know much about HTML which is a bit like applying to be head chef at a steakhouse, but not having much familiarity with meat. She apparently doesn't have the best grasp on PhotoShop either, because the home page of the site looks like dung today. Way to rep your $30 million/year company, guys! Bet you're glad you got to save a little money on my replacement, what does it really matter if your site looks less professional than something some dude would run out of his basement.

So, I sent them an e-mail offering to do freelance work for them for a reasonable fee...if they pay in advance.

Smoke gets in your eyes

More news from Tyler Gifts...

Monday morning when people were going into work, they noticed something that smelled like car fumes in the back hallway. Apparently, when John went to snowblow the sidewalk, he decided to start the snowblower in the hall so he could attack the walk as soon as he got out. Here's what's wrong with that:

1) Who starts an engine in a building that isn't a garage or workshop?

2) There is a step down from the hall to the walk, so somehow John had to open the double doors and ease that thing from the building to the walk with the blades spinning all at the same time -- with a bad back. Somehow this made more sense than just going outside first.

3) There is an awning that covers the first 4 feet of walkway ouside the doorway anyway, so he would have been just as far ahead starting outside.

4) John is the smartest/best VP they have.

5) John is a VP! WTF is he doing blowing snow IN THE FIRST PLACE!? I'll tell you what. Bill, aka "Captain Patience" happened to get in early that day and didn't have anybody else in yet to exercise his manhood on, so he called John to do it. More great mangerial skill from the top down.

Man, I miss that place.

Fear is a very useful tool in Brainwashing

More news from Tyler Gifts...

So Rananah, the new Web designer, was sent to Florida for training this week. Or at least she was supposed to be. You see, Philly airport has a tendency to delay flights if too many mice in the area fart at the same time and stir the wind up to .036 MPH and Saturday night / Sunday morning brought a foot or more of snow to all of Eastern PA. Her flight was supposed to be at 3 PM Sunday. Early Sunday morning Rananah called Franz and asked him if she could reschedule her trip, she didn't feel safe driving and chances were her flight may get canceled anyway. Franz said absolutely not and told her he would take her.

He didn't tell her he would stay and wait with her.

I hope she brought a book...and something comfortable to use as a pillow...and, now that I think about it, I hope they bothered to think about arranging her transportation when she landed since she's too young to rent a car and because she would have been inexperienced enough in such things to not think of it, and because if they were going to front the cash she would need to ask like 2 weeks in advance.

All this adds up to giving your brand new young person an impression of how the company works that is guaranteed to scare her off in no time. Meanwhile, Franz, you paid $5k for the trip to boot. You're a shrewd business man, alright.

So this place they sent her for training on the company's database is the same place they sent me last November. [Just for the record, in November I suggested that they wait until after the new year to send me because it was a very busy time for us and because I knew secretly that I would probably be leaving soon and I wanted to save them the money. There's another $5k in the toilet, gentlemen -- thanks again for listening to me.] It's good training that she should have (assuming they sent her for the right training, which they didn't with me, which meant I wasted two days and bunches of their money -- again, Franz's fault), but Fred the IT guy REALLY needs it too and Fred could have gone too if Franz would have waited a week. Actually, a lot of the logistics would be easier if Fred could go at the same time, but OH NO, Franz can't wait an extra week. Even though it would be one $7500 trip instead of two $5k trips. Even though it would help Rananah to actually get some time with the Db at Tyler before going down. Even though the information is not time sensitive and there is NO REASON to force this trip and ignore the facts in the last two sentences. What a tool.

It would be one thing if the place was AT&T and had more money than they know what to do with, but this is the place that had people work until midnight on New Year's Eve so they could get all the money they could before month's/year's end. Unbelieveable.


Complete side note: I taked to Tom @ the ISP last night. We might get to hear some interesting stories from him in the near future.

Setting the mood

Mike recently gave me his old cell phone when he upgraded to the new Motorola RAZR. There was nothing wrong with mine, but it was aging, so I gladly accepted. My old phone played polyphonic ringtones, but not real music tones. The new one does it all, so I celebrated by downloading myself an old favorite, So, What'cha Want by the Beastie Boys. Yeah, it's a little obnoxious, but I like it. Plus, I receive calls on my cell phone about twice per month, and almost never during the day, so it's not like I'm annoying the world with it.

Regardless, I have been trying to make sure I put my phone on 'silent' during the day because people at my job just don't make personal calls. I've been pretty good about it, I've only forgotten to shut it off twice. Apparently, those days were the two I was due for incoming calls this month. Twice everything has been quiet in the office when all of the sudden punk rap starts blaring from the pocket of my jacket. Twice I have gone red in the mad dash to get my hand in there and silence it as soon as possible. The people I work with are pretty forgiving, and I doubt they think any less of me anyway, it's just one of those things.

Which makes my mind wander to another point. Is it just me, or does it seem that the more advanced phones have become, the harder it is to silence them? The one I had two phones ago only required the right grasp to cover the speaker and muffle it to a level that was quiet enough for me to finish the silencing the ring altogether. This phonecan be grabbed in a way that completely covers the speaker, and somehow it still manages to put out enough sound to keep a small nightclub jumping. I'm not complaining, it's just an observation.

"When I found out yesterday, dontcha know that I..."

It's amazing how much I hear about what's going on at the old place without really asking. The grapevine passed me this little nugget...

They hired a girl fresh out of college to take my place. It's no real surprise. It shows their complete lack of committment to the only hope they have of saving their company in the long run. Not that it's any comment on her abilities, I know nothing about her. The point is, if they were serious they would have hired somebody experienced, which would mean money - probably more than they were paying me - and they have no concept of what's good for the bottom line beyond today. But that's neither here nor there in terms of this story.

Apparently Franz scheduled a conference call with himself, the new girl and Tom, the guy at the ISP that had been a great help to me and Mike before me. Franz and the new girl, who I'm going to call Dottie for lack of knowledge about her, sat in the conference room waiting for Tom to call. Apparently 10 minutes or so went by and Franz got very impatient. Finally, Tom called and before he could offer any explanation, Franz launced into a tirade about Tom's incompetence and chastised him at length complaining and being his usual prickish self with all the artificial bravado an over-compensating wannabe could possibley muster.

When Franz finally stopped to catch his breath, Tom broke in, "I'm late calling because you gave me the wrong number to the conference room and I had to call someone else to get the right one."

"No I didn't, you're just to stupid to dial it correctly," Franz retorted, voice ruffled with doubt.

"You did. You e-mailed it to me. I have it right here in front of me," replied Tom who then proceeded to read back the numbers.

"Oh. I guess I flipped the last two numbers"

"Yeah. I guess you did."

Not only smooth, but so telling of his character. If I would have been there, I would have laughed my ass off. And he did it in front of the new girl, whom he was no dout trying to impress with his managerial brio.

Why does it always come back to this?

So, I'm loving the new job. It remains perfect. Well, almost perfect. See, I now work in a smallish room with three women. "Three women?" you ask, "oh, I feel so sorry for you Mat![/sarcasm]" Yeah, that's not the bad part. See, because the room is smallish, and because I'm not looking to leave the wrong impression on these people who have known me for three weeks, I'm guarding myself a lot more closely in terms of, shall we say, "bleeding the pressure from the lower plumbing." Not that I'm the type to gas the office on a regular basis, but when the system's on high alert and you couple it with "new guy nerves," It can lead to some significant build-up.

So the other day, I let the pressure build for a while, and then went for an afternoon walk to the lunchroom for a cup of water and a little of the old "vent-and-drag" maneuver (see also, " cropdusting"). Now, keep in mind, this trek involves a short trip through the warehouse, which would be the perfect place to dissipate extraneous gas. But, did I do that? No, I waited until I got to the lunchroom - a much smaller, enclosed space - and "depressurized" while thumbing the button for the water-cooler. No big deal, it was the afternoon after all, so it's not like the place was due for much business. So, I finished both and headed for the door. I flipped the light switch and closed the door behind me, and as I turned for the steps, my eyes went wide with horror and I blushed as I saw someone else coming up the steps to the kitchen. I probably could have tried to delay her with idle talk, I probably could have faked a heart attack and fallen down the metal stairs, but I'm pretty sure my shocked look and blush had already condemned me anyway, so I just smiled as I passed her on the steps and left her to walk into the methane incubator.

Oh well. People had to find out sometime I guess.

Resurrection

The new job is awesome. Seriously, I don’t want to bubble over it like a little girl with her love of the week, but I couldn’t have thought up anything better if I had tried. It’s so professional compared to any place I’ve been since my internship, I feel like an adult again. And though I’ve been a little slow these first couple days, I think it’s going to be a very mutually beneficial situation once I get groovin’.

My boss asked me to call a printing company yesterday to quote on the next catalog we do. I was talking to one of the reps, and the conversation started all business then was just chatting like so many business calls are.

“So, you haven’t been there long, right?” the sales guy asked.
“Just a week and a half.”
“Where were you before?”
“A small catalog company called Tyler Gifts.”
“Oh yeah? I know about them. They’re not one of my accounts, but Franz is legendary around here.”
“Yep, that was my boss.”
“So, why’d you leave?”
“I hated the place and I was sure that if I stayed too long I wouldn’t be able to wash off all the scum.”
“Oh.[short pause] Then I guess it’s okay to tell you Franz is legendary for being a colossal prick.”
“The legends are true, my friend.”

I guess I always knew Mike and I weren’t crazy for feeling the way we did about that place, but it’s still nice to have some outside confirmation. Anyway, there are a couple more stories to tell. I’ve been busy, but I wanted to get something here for you all.

Thanks to all who voted in the poll. As it happens, there may well be another option that was not listed there – something I just found out about this week. I can’t get into details just yet, but some of you might be very happy to hear the news.

Oh, and – GO STEELERS!