The Horrors of the "Professional" World - Stories that will make you wonder how we exist.

[BrunoMattei]

I just dealt with a Karen who claimed she's not a Karen but acted like a Karen.
Yes, her name was Karen.

"I may be a Karen but I'm not THAT Karen!" Proceeds to act like a Karen.

Her words exactly.

Edit: dealing with a customer right now that needs a guide on how to assemble a garbage can with the little lever to open it. You know? One of these things?

How do you fail at life so hard that you can't figure out how to put this together?

 

[FierceBrosnan]

Fuck, I just signed up for training to get certified to work in IT in a few months. Skimming some of this thread is giving me second thoughts

Depends on what you plan on specializing in. if you get stuck in a support role, then you too shall feel our pain.

Currently I'm now on site end user support/facilities management for a multinational call center and oh lord I though my last job was fucking retarded. 4 months in and everything I used to do no longer applies here. The equipment here is so fucking outdated and I let out a loud "are you shitting me!?" when I saw PCs that had to be pushing 10 years old still in service and caked with dust and God knows what, piles of busted gear just crammed in an IDF closet, and a network team that does a better job of getting out of work than actually doing anything. On top of that the site went went nearly 1 year without any on-site IT presence. In the last 4 months I have ( in no order) gutted an entire half of the building to make room for a new client, decommissioned and recycled nearly 10 tons of busted and obsolete PCs and equipment, triaged a building sized diesel generator, repaired numerous fucked up data jacks, am building a current spreadsheet of what jack goes to what port on what switch ( got about 30 on site so this will take awhile), and that is all while juggling daily routine bullshit and trouble tickets. Thankfully it pays a little more than my last gig and the people I work with at site level are fucking awesome, else I'd have quit 2 months ago.

 

[totse]

In the last 4 months I have ( in no order) gutted an entire half of the building to make room for a new client, decommissioned and recycled nearly 10 tons of busted and obsolete PCs and equipment, triaged a building sized diesel generator, repaired numerous fucked up data jacks, am building a current spreadsheet of what jack goes to what port on what switch ( got about 30 on site so this will take awhile), and that is all while juggling daily routine bullshit and trouble tickets. Thankfully it pays a little more than my last gig and the people I work with at site level are fucking awesome, else I'd have quit 2 months ago.

Good shit man, not to detract from the bad side of it but I wish I could claim that variety of experience. I'm seeing infrastructure setup, inventory management, power management, and network admin -- keep that shit for your resume, I always forget to write down anything about the cool stuff I end up doing at jobs. All I end up being able to say at interviews is what I happen to remember about the actual job description, and I always have to make up stories about "a time you dealt with _____" because I can't remember the real ones.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

The other thing I remember is that there'd be a prize draw each week for some of the memorabilia and advertising stands. One bloke ended up getting some giant cardboard cutout of Mamma Mia. Not being a menopausal woman, he didn't really want it and so flogged it on eBay. Manager finds out and fires him. Apparently this wasn't allowed and was some sort of breach of copyright or something, I don't know. Allegedly all the standees and marketing crap has a secret hidden serial number in it or something. No idea how true this is

I'm not sure where I read or heard it, but it's supposedly the case that promotional materials given to theaters are either somehow proprietary or otherwise not for general consumption by the public. In other words, the theater may be able to give them workers as gifts or mementos, but it would be forbidden to regift them to someone else as described here. True or not, I believe there is some sort of hidden code in these items -- perhaps as a way to verify authenticity.

The bigger question is whether the person was aware of this policy before he decided to peddle his unwanted gift on eBay.

Also, how much does it cost to proofread something these days?

Sadly, proofreaders in all sorts of print media have been replaced or eliminated because they're seen by penny-pinchers as just another cost that can be done without. It's definitely apparent in newspapers, but also other print publications as well. I recently saw something in a weekly publication that reported a 1/12 ratio as 12% instead of 8.3% and cut off the leading digit in another figure which incorrectly reduced the value by a factor of 11 .

I was talking about virtual gambling. About all those betting websites. It absolutely is designed to keep you reeled in but you get no proverbial Vaseline for your buttfuck. It is straight to the point.

Ever since online gambling became legal here, the involved casinos have been aggressive with their marketing, commercials, and social media ads to the point they're more prevalent and more annoying than political ads.

The worst part is that they have these promotional pitches that claim they will cover up to X amount of losses on your first day of gambling on their site. What they don't tell you and leave in the small print disclaimers is that the refund comes in the form of a site credit. In other words, you get your money back, but only if you use it for more gambling on their site.

There's also been reports of lawsuits involving people whose winning wagers weren't paid off for whatever reason.

NGL, I almost feel as if online gambling sites want people to become addicted to their sites, if not gambling as a whole. It's not surprising that that the local paper has reported an upsurge in problem gambling while COVID restrictions were in full force.

A friend who works in my industry sent me this:

Calls from anyone who can't take no for an answer are definitely up there in terms of the worst.

My older job stopped using a particular brand of software about 12 years ago now. I still get calls and emails from that vendor's sales people wanting to set up a "please use our software again meeting." Someone from this company called today, and I point blank told the person, "We haven't used your software in over 10 years and I'm not planning to start up again," before hanging up.

On a related note, I've had a professional ask me multiple time if I did any work for a former client during 2020. I've said no at least twice and explained why at least once (if not more times) only to get asked the same question again at a later time.

 

[Grotesque Bushes]

My boilerplate go-to excuse I settled on was either "the company's venture funding is running out and I'm not sure they're going to get more" or "grapevine is they're going to terminate our division and I want to get out ahead of it". Anything else invites uncomfortable questions, I found.

It took me over two years to understand how good advice this is. It's either because this is profound or because I'm dumb, but either way - do follow this.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

I was immediately told that I wouldn't "fit in" there because I wasn't a team player.

Lol. "How To Foster Insubordination, 101"

They were idiots. You are exactly the person I would hire.
I've never been a "team player" either, but I've always understood that "team player" is mostly a synonym for "doormat".

 

[SITHRAK!]

This is one of the reasons i hope there is an outbreak of a massive and deadly disease… so they cannot leave their country.

Literally two months later, you got your wish.
Be careful what you wish for…

 

[Beluga]

Don't know if this qualifies as horror but my fucking boss almost every single day assigns me tasks to do 15 fucking minutes before the end of the day. Bitch I've been here for 8 hours, couldn't you ask me to do this shit 2 hours ago? God fucking dammit.

 

[XYZpdq]

>>dude who sometimes pays me for stupid IT thing
>breh shit's fucked
>>me
>yeah I see that, hold up I'll make it work
>>dude
>yeah nah brah, just get some sleep
>>me
>cmon it's friday night, not like I've got something better to do lol

 

[Sped Xing]

A copy of "The Jail Times" sat on the front desk. I pointed at it and asked, jokingly, "anyone we know?"

My co-worker proceeded to thumb through, calling out various friends, acquaintences, and relatives.

 

[Overcast]

So, I take care of the trash in my store. Take it all to the trash compactor in the back. When I first started working there, it was usually unlocked and I would do what I need to do no problem and get right to work on my next project.

Since my manager got replaced however, the compactor door must now be locked at all times. That's fine, there's always that rare chance someone stupid would go in and get themselves hurt. The problem was however, the keys were all relegated to the managers instead of the people who's job is to take care of the trash. So, whenever I collect trash, I have to find someone with a key to unlock it. And most of the keys are placed along with other people's car keys, so I'd be extra fucked if I somehow lost it.

I ask my manager why we don't have our own keys. She said something about looking for the person who wasn't locking the compactor after using it, and that we, the maintenance team never offer to lock it back up for them. Which was a fair point, but how were we supposed to lock it up if we don't know who had the keys? Why not just enforce us to use keys from now on and be responsible for our own. Especially considering I was given my own key for operating the faucet used to deep clean the restrooms in the morning.

So, before I'm able to do my job, I have to look around the store, find a manager, get their key, open up the compactor, take care of the trash, lock it AND look around the store again for the same person and give them back their key.

Now, we have phones for contacting each other, so I shouldn't have to LOOK for them. Problem is, my department's radios are either all lost or broken and we have to rely on OTHER people's phones if we want to call others.

I asked my manager, the same lady who imposed the compactor key rules when we were getting new phones and she told me with a smile "Not for a long time. New phones are expensive!"

Now, we did eventually get new phones. But they were one way and only used to communicate with other maintenance people. Not with anyone else. I was told by a co-worker that we're still in the process of getting new proper phones, but why even bother getting these if they were just gonna get replaced later down the line?

I take pride in my job and I like a lot of the people working there, but goddammit, so much makes little sense here to me.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

Also, no shade against your former job, but I think it’s hilarious colleges take a ton of money from you and then ask you for even more money after you’ve finally graduated. My brother went to very highly ranked, very expensive private college (basically pseudo-Ivy League) and our whole family is incredulous whenever the alumni association tries to hit him up for more cash.

My alma mater tends to call, usually once near the end of each of the fall and winter semesters, to make a pitch for donations. To their credit, they haven't been too pushy and seem to appreciate my stories of what university life was like (and how much cheaper tuition was even for a public university) when I was a student compared to now.

That said, the calls have lessened recently, partly due to COVID most likely, but perhaps because I told the last couple of callers that I now donate once a year in conjunction with the school's designated day where alumni are encouraged to make donations because there are more opportunities for corporate/anonymous donors to match certain donations made on that day.

I feel for those who went to private universities that cost significantly more and usually result in student debt. It takes a bit of chutzpah for private universities to solicit alumni for donations if and when they're still paying off said debt. A private university in my state apparently plans to start a pilot program with a limited number of incoming students where they will be offered free tuition (they'd only have to pay for room and board and incidentals) in return for their promise to make a certain amount of donations over time after they graduate as a way to pay it forward for future students. While I find this to be some degree of thinking outside the box, I wonder if it can truly be successful on any sort of meaningful level.

Boomers can be really weird when it comes to post offices. Mom just had a woman come in today and demand that she use her computer to renew her car insurance.

When I still worked for my late boss, I had a client get the boss' approval (against my objections) a few years back to use our work PC to download and print off a needed document she left at home only to complain about the internet connection begin too slow after I had specifically told her it wasn't a fast connection. Now I know why my boss right before she passed away told me not to do their taxes last year. They're they type of clients whose drama makes it not worth the time, hassle, or money to engage with them.

 

[Jason Wynn]

I’m an office drone. We recently got a new hire acting as morning receptionist. Nice girl, but a little spacey. Seems to need help with a lot of seemingly simple tasks like figuring out how to transfer calls. Figured it was just new hire jitters and she’d acclimate in a few days.

The other morning she comes up to me, visibly upset asking if I can help her with something. I walk over figuring it would be a small computer issue or something. I see a pile of about four ripped to hell bagels and a few pats of cream cheese

I had to teach a mid 20s woman how to spread cream cheese on a bagel. This is gonna be fun…

 

[BillyGoat2]

I fucking hate the disconnect with management/sales people and the Production line in just about any manufacturing job. I cut and build piston heads for fuckhuge engines that go in boats and those 2 story dump trucks in mines. its gotten so bad that all you can really do now is laugh at it. I actually started coming to work every day since last September expecting something to break, fuck up or otherwise go FUBAR that would leave some part of my line down for the day (prep, machining, measurement, building, shipment) and up until end of January, I was right 3/5 days of the week.

"Hey Billygoat, you know these 100 pound piston heads we cut that go anywhere from 10-16 per engine the size of a volkswagon beetle?"

"yeah."

"How many behind are we now?"

"I lost count march or april '18 at around 3000 units. Management won't give me numbers anymore"

"lol k"

Im not even joking with that figure by the way. Some chucklefuck in management or sales passed on an order that was physically impossible to complete. on top of that they ignored the issues with the machine we used at the time being an ancient piece of shit from 1990 which could get the equivalent of about 1 unit per hour and the numerous calls over the years to replace it because it would go FUBAR and production down multiple times a week. The machine ended up literally killing itself sometime between end of febuary to mid march last year. It said FUCK YOU to my co worker and overtraveled so hard on startup it ripped out its own guts from the spindle, flooded the Hydraulic lines with cutting coolant, and cracked the radiator all in one go. we even had coolant spurt out of the Fill tank for hydraulic oil a good five feet from the fill point at the back of the machine. (supervisor ignored our reports on how fucked it was, forced the maintenance techs to force start the machine in that state. lol)

we were production down for a good month and a half which lost around 500 units of production during that time because they had NO plans to replace that machine or have any form of machine that could run the units. Thankfully I kept my job and still work for these chucklefucks, and during that month and a half they reprogrammed another machine halfway across the plant to cut the units. Still have to lug them two at a time by handcart back and forth from the old area to the machine and back however.

Cutting time on this second slightly less ancient machine is about 2 heads every hour and a half, though with various things like it also being a piece of shit, and dealing with basic tooling issues (replacing/adjusting cutting edges) it still clocks out at around 1 head per hour. with maybe an extra pair of heads on a good day.

while we do finally have a new state of the art machine being worked on and programmed to get these piston heads done, management still does not have a fucking clue about production capabilities.

In a shift meeting with us floor guys and management they do every quarter, the head guy in charge of the plant mentioned he wanted my line to eventually work up to about 54 heads cut per day. I audibly snorted at him and said that is not possible. I explained to him that running the machine 24/7 no stops for anything such as tool adjustment or the machine going tits up and expecting a constant supply of raw units (always in question) we can machine between 24 and 30 heads per day. that is the maximum capability of the machine.

in other note, when we do get this second brand new machine up and running, (which we do not yet know the production capabilities of, as in cycle time) if they want us to run both it and the old machine at the same time, we might e able to theoretically get 54 heads per day, but we will inevitably shut down and be unable to meet that demand anyway for multiple reasons.

we have 4 people on two shifts right now. we dont have the bodies to do everything as it currently is, let alone trying to tard wrangle both machines and everything else. We'd have to shut down within a few days because of either
A. no one to prep. cant get heads to the machine. shut down. current max production in readying heads for the machine is 12-16 in 10 hours. (Can ratchet it up close to 20 or more with two people tag teaming it though)
B. no one to build. Shut down because we have such a major surplus of heads that it would take days to push them all through to clear up the area.
C. lack of supply. we have had many times where our core supply is grossly inadequate to meet the current capabilities we have, just barely squeaking by at some points.

Hell, we could run into those issues anyway depending on how short the cycle time of this new machine is.

tl;dr, Force management and sales fucks to actually work with the areas for at least one week. then you wont get thousands of units behind.

How the fuck we still have this contract I will never know.

Since i got a recent ping of someone reacting to this, figured i'd give a small update.

That new state of the art machine that cost closer to 1M USD than 100k (i dont remember exactly) we got up and running within a month or two of this post. by July the contract finally got pulled.

Except for some fiddling by engineers/techs in the last 3 months its been sitting gathering dust since the second half of 2019

Ive since been farmed out to another area and kept my job through the pandemic and till today.

 

[XYZpdq]

had to call cable tech support to get the modem reset, and the guy did it, then it was clear that it was some shit on my router I needed to reset a few times and yell at it for a bit and I kept trying to go and the guy kept trying to resolve it on his end and eventually had to make it clear that he would be in trouble if he didn't resolve it per The Rules
so we had to fuck around for like ten minutes before he could declare it was now time to call a tech
I felt bad for him and didn't have the heart to hang up on him. When they eventually called to schedule the tech from the local office I had already fixed my shits, and explained a bunch of times how the guy on the phone really tried and it was just on my end and shit.

 

[WhatInTheActualFuck]

had to call cable tech support to get the modem reset, and the guy did it, then it was clear that it was some shit on my router I needed to reset a few times and yell at it for a bit and I kept trying to go and the guy kept trying to resolve it on his end and eventually had to make it clear that he would be in trouble if he didn't resolve it per The Rules
so we had to fuck around for like ten minutes before he could declare it was now time to call a tech
I felt bad for him and didn't have the heart to hang up on him. When they eventually called to schedule the tech from the local office I had already fixed my shits, and explained a bunch of times how the guy on the phone really tried and it was just on my end and shit.

Yeah, the tech support guys for cable companies are basically just clicking through a flowchart and have to stick to the script - the days of talking to someone that actually knows anything are long gone. The last time I called, I told the guy that I'm literally looking at the ground block from the drop with a broken connector and he still did the "are there any lights on on your modem?" spiel.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Yeah, the tech support guys for cable companies are basically just clicking through a flowchart and have to stick to the script - the days of talking to someone that actually knows anything are long gone. The last time I called, I told the guy that I'm literally looking at the ground block from the drop with a broken connector and he still did the "are there any lights on on your modem?" spiel.

They have to ask those questions because when the call is listened to they can be docked by managers for not doing it.

 

[WhatInTheActualFuck]

They have to ask those questions because when the call is listened to they can be docked by managers for not doing it.

Yeah, I know the deal. It doesn't make it any less annoying, though.

 

[Stasi]

So my cunty new boss is still a cunt but hey I came here because of the interesting work right?

Apparently not. When interviewing I made it clear changing jobs would be a career move and I wanted to work on complex projects in my field which my background and skillset are in. They promised that would be my job but when I got here I get put on a boring ass box ticking exercise. My job is basically making sure person a sends email to person b and doesn't shit the bed while doing it and they don't do the kind of work I was promised.

Its crazy to me that employers do this, like what do you think the person will do when they start and find out you fed them a load of bullshit to get them in the door. I'm already thinking of leaving and keeping an eye out for other jobs in my field.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

like what do you think the person will do when they start and find out you fed them a load of bullshit to get them in the door.

I've been there. Hell, I once moved to a different country on the promise that I would not be doing a particular role within the company. 6 months in, "Oh, we've decided to change direction with this operation and we need you to be in charge of the thing we know you hate and we told you you'd never have to do again."
Then they tried to imply I was disloyal when I gave two weeks notice.