chum1's dumb job stories

[chum1]

To add insult to insult, I just took a piece of leftover cake from the baby shower that I did not attend. 

[chum1]

The birthday lunch invite didn't really say who was having the birthday. I was like, "no big deal, I'll figure that out when I get there." It was like 15-20 minutes into lunch before I figured it out. The giveaway was when a girl broke a period of silence by thanking everyone for eating lunch with her on her birthday.

They made her a big card and put some printouts of personal pics in it that they'd obtained from her facebook account. And they all wrote semi-dirty jokes inside. For example, Q: what's the difference between a boy and girl snowman? A: snowballs!

Someone came in late because she'd just been in an auto accident. She started describing what happened and then the birthday girl interrupted to tell us about the time her car broke down and she was dressed like a clown and she didn't have a phone and the police wouldn't come because they thought they were getting crank calls and no one would stop because they thought she was just doing funny clown stuff rather than signaling for help.

The next get together is Saturday evening (well, excluding the bar tomorrow night, that is). It's an annual event. At someone's house. And it has a name. Beerfest.

[chum1]

The next get together is Saturday evening (well, excluding the bar tomorrow night, that is). It's an annual event. At someone's house. And it has a name. Beerfest.

I'd heard more than a couple mentions of Beerfest from more than a couple people at work over the past few months. So, in my mind, it was going to be maybe 8-10 people from work and their guests. You know just hanging out and laughing about work mostly. I got a clue it wasn't exactly going to be like that at happy hour the night before. I brought it up and and a girl remarked that I'd be getting to meet all of the sci-fi people, who are friends of Mr. Beerfest, husband of my coworker, Mrs. Beerfest. The girl says, "remember how Mrs. Beerfest was talking about the Six-Million Dollar Man lunch box the other day?"

So, my wife and I show up about an hour after the official start of Beerfest. We go in, say hi to Mrs. Beerfest, and I'm scanning all of the people in sight to see who I recognize. I'm not seeing anyone I know. Mrs. Beerfest shows us to the kitchen and where all the food is. I look around the kitchen and still don't recognize anyone. Then, Mrs. Beerfest says the beer is down in the basement and people are hanging out down there. So, I'm thinking "Aha! My coworkers are downstairs!" They were not. Not a damn one.

Instead, we said hi to Mr. Beerfest, who I'd met a couple times before. We immediately started talking about the impressive display of sci-fi memorabilia on the shelves that spanned the entire length of one wall. He picked up a stack of fake money that was used as a prop in an X-Files episode. He asked me if I remembered something, and I think it was the name of the X-Files episode, and I was just like, "no, I don't know what that is." Then he asked me about if I'd seen something that had a really obscure sounding name, like "Wyent" or something. The conversation ended pretty quickly after that. I then met a few of Mrs. Beerfest's relatives and then my wife and I headed back upstairs.

We got some food, and ended up sitting down at the kitchen table. There were like six people standing around and talking. This super tan, super blonde girl with boobs spilling out all over the place was telling a story about how some dental hygenist grabbed a dentist's ass at work and said, "sorry, I just couldn't help myself." She then told that exact same story like three more times to the exact same people. At some point, I noticed that I could see into the living room from where I was sitting. I saw Mrs. Beerfest's relatives in there. It looked like they were having some sort of family gathering or something. I looked a little closer and see that they're in there opening Christmas presents. At that point, I asked my wife if she was ready to go.

[chum1]

So, President/COO Charlie Sheen door guy is gone as of 1/1/18. Seems like he and the the owner/CEO weren't seeing eye to eye. Since then, the other owner guy, Roy, who before was merely a silent partner, has moved into an office and has been, I don't know, doing stuff.

I'm not really sure how old Roy is. Retirement age. The first time I met him, he walked into my conference room office, said, "So, what is it you do around here," pulled up a chair, and sat down. I immediately thought, "OH crap," sat up striaght, and tried to make myself sound as important as possible. Then, he pulled out his phone and showed me live video streams from about 25 cameras in his brand new airplane hangar packed full of shiny airplanes ready for use in who knows what sort of commercial aviation endeavor. Then, he asked me if I knew anything about QuickBooks, adding that they were having some issues with it at the airport.

The next time I saw him, he pulled out his phone again. More airplane hangar live streams. After that, live streams of a couple hotel lobbies, bars, and restaurants. He explained how he had a camera on the point-of-sale touchscreen in order to monitor if customers were getting charged or comped for drinks. I understand that he also owns a strip club that he won in a poker game, but the streams he showed me were all G-rated. I told him to let me know if he still needed help with QuickBooks. He replied, "Okay! I'm not bashful!"

[chum1]

Ugh. This sucked so bad.

People are buying tickets to micro wrestling.

[chum1]

The right hand man of the now gone President/COO came into my conference room office looking for a box. He was packing up the stuff in his office because he's transitioning out of the company (which is unsurprising given the right hand man thing). He then compared his situation to my boss's. News to me!

So, I went into my boss's boss's office to find out what's going on. Apparently, my boss is not going to be employed by the company, but basically doing the same work on a contract basis (and have other clients). So, it looks like I'm not really going to have a boss going forward. I have previous experience in this area!

[chum1]

I am SUPER hungover from micro wrestling last night. I saw a coworker's boobs. She's like the VP of Finance or whatever.

I was too hungover to give more of a write-up on Saturday.

I got there long after the thing had started. I was ready to start joking around and laughing with my coworkers. They were pretty much all watching the show, though. Like, not into it by yelling and cheering and stuff. More like just quietly watching.

I tried to joke around with a few people and eventually ended up subtly headbanging and singing along to the metal that was constantly playing with a couple of girls from the office at the end of the table. By that time, the thing was just about over and I had started ironically cheering and yelling smartass stuff. I was mostly way too drunk to notice or care what kind of reaction I got from my coworkers, but I don't think they thought I was as funny as I did.

I don't remember a lot after that. The most notable incident, though, was when I turned my head and saw the VP of Finance posing for a pic with a couple of the wrestlers and some random dudes. Right at the time they all came into focus for me, up went her shirt and out came the boobs in a single, smooth, seemingly well practiced motion.

I also had to sneak in because it was sold out. VP of Finance let me in the side door.

[chum1]

A coworker just talked me out of using "xx_420_blazeit_xx" as the name for my work NCAA bracket.

After seeing the name on our ESPN group page, she came over to my conference room/office, sat down, and said, "we need to talk about your 420 blazeit name." She said she thought it was hilarious, but thought others would very much not. So, I changed it to Mario4-2.

THEN, after I changed it, I swear to God a dude came over to my conference room/office, sat down, and said, "we need to talk about Mario. Do you play? Are you a fan?" I am not making this up.

For reference:

Holy crap. (And, yeah, the dude's name had me loling.)

https://twitter.com/billbarnwell/status/967525269274857473

[chum1]

This is a German girl who seems maybe a tad shy of being fully proficient at speaking English. We introduced ourselves and then she just marched me straight to the VP's office and told me I could sit in there and wait if I wanted. I was like "Maybe I'll go find the bathroom and check out the gym. Or even leave and come back in an hour." She said okay and then turned around and walked off.

German girl is now my boss. I have to move into a room with her and some other girl. This will probably be a good time to do some more posting to this thread.

[chum1]

OMG this is dude#2, my old boss's boss. 

There is a dude who was sort of the guru/inside connection for the main software platform my company uses. We are currently transitioning to another software platform. He's been kept totally out of the loop on that. I get the impression that maybe he screws up a lot and people are tired of working with him. So, it really feels like we're phasing out of both the software and this dude. Like they'll be getting rid of him soon. :(

So, yesterday, the office manager lady was going around to notify that people were gathering at this dude's office for his birthday. We head down there and people are milling around inside and outside his door because he's not there. I decide to go back to my office because there's no telling how long it will be before he returns. And also because the whole thing was kinda weird. Why not in the break room like usual? Why no email announcement like usual?

I heard them sing happy birthday from down the hall, wait a bit, and then head back to his office. He's sitting at his desk, has a smallish cake directly in front of him, and there are around twelve people standing around the perimeter of his office. No one can really think of anything to say. Someone makes a comment on the cake. Everyone is like, "yeah!" Then, silence again. It's just totally rough ridin' awkward. So, he's like, "let's have some cake!" And he reaches awkwardly across his desk for some paper plates and starts cutting into the cake. He's just sitting there at his desk, trying to balance squares of cake on a plastic knife so they don't fall off, and there's a group of people are standing around, just watching. I couldn't stay there. The scene was just too pathetic and sad and I couldn't take it.

When I got in this morning, I saw the pitiful, little cake sitting in the break room. The majority of it was still there. I'd guess maybe six pieces had been eaten.

[chum1]

When I started my current job, this German girl and I reported to dude#1 who reported to dude#2. dude#1 left. Now, dude#2 and I both report to German girl. Super awkward. I'm pretty certain that dude#2's days are numbered.

I don't even know where to begin with all this. AMA.

[chum1]

At this moment, dude#2 is training someone on how to do something he's been doing. Over the past few months, they've been assigning all his work to other people, telling him that he'll be working on something else. I think it's so they can get rid of him and that he may not completely realize what's happening.

Oh, God. dude#2 just finished training and came back in totally elated to have that task off his plate.

[chum1]

dude#2 talks A LOT. And it's not like interesting conversation or even conversation at all. He just always wants you to reassure him that he did the right thing or be totally exasperated with bullshit along with him or whatever. rough ridin' annoying. He just moved into the same room as me and German girl this week. A few days ago, she asks me how I'm coping with the extra noise. I said fine. She replied that I wouldn't have to deal with it much longer and winked.

[chum1]

Wait, so using letters as initial rank, Dude 2 started as A, Dude 1 as B, you and German girl as C1 and C2. Now B is gone and both A and C1 work for C2 but A is getting slowly pushed out?

Yep

I don’t even know where to start, but how did German girl come to be Dude #2’s boss?

When I started working there, dude#2 bitched nonstop about this software that we use for like 80% of our business. He's always blaming the lack of customer support and "spaghetti code" for recurring issues negatively affecting the company. He convinced everyone that it was time to shop for new software. And what does this genius do? He tasks German girl to lead this effort.

German girl then teams up with a new guy president (who had Charlie Sheen on his door) and ends up entering our company into a potentially very lucrative partnership with a very big software company. Meanwhile, these two newer people are also convincing the CEO that the aforementioned issues are caused more by dude#2's incompetence than by the old software. (Not wrong.) So, fast forward a year and dude#2 is very much on the outside looking in.

Dude#1 was gone and German girl had successfully recruited me to start working on this new software, so dude#2 was basically on his own. They must have told him his only option was to start working on the new software and report to German girl. So, that's pretty rough ridin' humiliating, right? He started clinging on to the old work he was doing and always saying he was just way too busy with that to be able to start on the new software. It's been like pulling teeth, but they've slowly convinced him to pass that work off to other people. He also finally moved out of his old office he was also clinging to. And that's where we are now.

[mocat]

I love all of this so much

[8manpick]

I’m disappointed this has been split off from the Steve Jobs thread, but it’s still great

[DaBigTrain]

While I think I’ve read all of these over time, is there any way to consolidate so I’m up to date fast?

[8manpick]

While I think I’ve read all of these over time, is there any way to consolidate so I’m up to date fast?

It’s 2 pages, just take the 6 minutes

[DaBigTrain]

While I think I’ve read all of these over time, is there any way to consolidate so I’m up to date fast?

It’s 2 pages, just take the 6 minutes

[steve dave]

Chum, I want to work at your office


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[Spracne]

Very curious what products and/or services your office sells.

[chum1]

Very curious what products and/or services your office sells.

HR, payroll, benefits, tax stuff. Companies outsource that stuff to my company.

[chum1]

Someone new is joining our team today. German girl introduced me to her. Then, pointed out where dude#2 sits and whispered something to her. It could have been, "he won't be here long," or not. I really couldn't hear.

So, I start thinking that maybe dude#2 has another job lined up already and his departure just hasn't been officially announced yet. But, THEN, dude#2 comes in and starts talking about how excited he is about the new team and how he can't wait to dig in and start learning this new software.

Also, German girl informed us on Friday that an additional new person is joining our team. Which is pretty interesting because there are four work spaces in this room.

[steve dave]

poor dude #2.


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[pissclams]

i picture german girl as the st paulies girl.  and don't say anything, just let me have this.