Strange work procedures

[Alpinemaps]

I'm a federal employee. The systems we use to fill out for our time off, or for arranging travel - a total time sync.

Since I'm the boss, I make my employees hop on one foot before they enter my office. Just because I can.

 

[Trekker4747]

For PTO I ask my employees to fellatiate me.

 

[Kitty Worrier]

We do something similar at my workplace. Basically, it's your chance to highlight things you think you did particularly well, so that they'll give you a bigger raise.

Ditto. We also have to put down additional jobs we'd "like" to do next year on the same form

We call them evaluations at my job. You have to rate how you do in each category of your job, list improving spots/what you need to work on, what you'd like to learn in the upcoming year, and there's a spot for you to place comments made to you by co-workers.

And then your manager fills out a form about you and you have a meeting with the manager.

Each time I do it, I feel like I'm in high school.

 

[Holdfast]

We do something similar at my workplace. Basically, it's your chance to highlight things you think you did particularly well, so that they'll give you a bigger raise.

Ditto. We also have to put down additional jobs we'd "like" to do next year on the same form

We call them evaluations at my job. You have to rate how you do in each category of your job, list improving spots/what you need to work on, what you'd like to learn in the upcoming year, and there's a spot for you to place comments made to you by co-workers.

And then your manager fills out a form about you and you have a meeting with the manager.

Each time I do it, I feel like I'm in high school.

I detest annual appraisals, personal development plans, continuing professional development, and job planning in general. Complete fucking waste of my time, and the paperwork we have to collate for them now needs to be collected over the year, so it's not like I can just leave it to the night before like I used to in years past.

It woudl be true to say that this sort of "over-the-shoulder" bureaucratic management and corporate/clinical governance is a big part of why I have no intention to continue working in this sort of environment. I work best when given free rein to "get the job done" and large organisations - whether public or private - just don't offer that sort of freedom.

 

[SmoothieX]

Yeah. It's just that we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS
reports before now before they go out now. So I'd really appreciate it
if you could just remember to do that from now on. That'd be great.

Let me ask you this: How much time would you say you spend each week dealing with these TPS reports?

Yeah...

 

[CaptainStoner]

Checklists. We have to check both the left and right side of the list for each line item.

That sounds a bit like the agency I work for. The new thing now is they want all the staff to initial every note in the communication log, even though there is also a spot on your checklist for "Read Log". Because covering the log pages with initials will make everything better.

 

[milo bloom]

We're coming up on our annual reviews and such in the next couple of months, and we also have to do the self-appraisal. Everyone hates doing them, but now that I'm in management they can be helpful at times. But, during this review period we're also supposed to setup goals/projects for the upcoming year which doesn't really make sense as our industry isn't really a project-to-project type of work. It's just ongoing tasks and, when trends do arise which need new processes, they never fit neatly into a review period box. You just start the process as soon as it becomes evident (though if you're paying attention, one process will review will point out a potential flaw in another, and you can start another process *before* the need arises, but it still doesn't always fit into a neat little "review period" box).

Also, the software our company uses, well, if I were ever asked to describe it in one word, that word would be "contrary". There are so many facets of it that are put together that are just absolutely contrary to how everybody instinctively thinks it would be done. Having used it for many years now, I've managed to gather a decent knowledge base, but if I ever have to explain it someone else, my explanations are constantly filled with "I don't know why it works like that, but it does, trust me". Even customers will call out oddities, and I just have to stumble through some "limitations of the software" nonsense and try to change the subject.

One bright spot though, is that lately one of our in-house programming persons has been taking suggestions of mine for tweaks and actually implementing them. All I can think is that now that I'm in a higher position, my suggestions carry more weight, but they're the same ideas I had when I was in a lower position and would have worked the same back then too.

 

[MetalPants]

Most of the things we do anymore has to be logged.... I swear, a full quarter of my job is filling out log books.

Ditto. In my case, another quarter of my time is spent making sure OTHER people's logs are OK.

Meat Cutter's Log. Earth Date February 26, 2010.

Today we ground 40 pounds of 85% Ground Beef. Lot number IBP 245c DDC 183, Julian Date 0360. Grind was performed by Patrick and clean-up procedures concluded at 6:25 AM. Cleaning of equipment verified and certified by [Trekker].

That's scary man! How long do you keep your ground beef just lying around? Julian date, if I have it right, was Dec. 27! Either I'm wrong about Julian date, your freezing or gassing your meat, or you are serving rotten meat to your customers.

 

[Trekker4747]

Ditto. In my case, another quarter of my time is spent making sure OTHER people's logs are OK.

Meat Cutter's Log. Earth Date February 26, 2010.

Today we ground 40 pounds of 85% Ground Beef. Lot number IBP 245c DDC 183, Julian Date 0360. Grind was performed by Patrick and clean-up procedures concluded at 6:25 AM. Cleaning of equipment verified and certified by [Trekker].

That's scary man! How long do you keep your ground beef just lying around? Julian date, if I have it right, was Dec. 27! Either I'm wrong about Julian date, your freezing or gassing your meat, or you are serving rotten meat to your customers.

On the packaging the fist three numbers of the Julian Date are the day of the year and the fourth number is the last number of the year. So "0360" is February 5, 2010.

 

[Holdfast]

Meat Cutter's Log. Earth Date February 26, 2010.

Today we ground 40 pounds of 85% Ground Beef. Lot number IBP 245c DDC 183, Julian Date 0360. Grind was performed by Patrick and clean-up procedures concluded at 6:25 AM. Cleaning of equipment verified and certified by [Trekker].

That's scary man! How long do you keep your ground beef just lying around? Julian date, if I have it right, was Dec. 27! Either I'm wrong about Julian date, your freezing or gassing your meat, or you are serving rotten meat to your customers.

On the packaging the fist three numbers of the Julian Date are the day of the year and the fourth number is the last number of the year. So "0360" is February 5, 2010.

IIRC, this is ordinal date, not Julian date.

(damn it, haven't posted anything quite that nerdy for ages... )

 

[1001001]

Anyone have a particular procedure they have to follow at work that seems to make absolutely no sense, but you do it anyway?

I work for a subcontractor of the VA, perhaps the biggest bureaucracy in the free world. Every day is like Office Space.

Most of what I have to do for them makes no sense.

 

[Trekker4747]

That's scary man! How long do you keep your ground beef just lying around? Julian date, if I have it right, was Dec. 27! Either I'm wrong about Julian date, your freezing or gassing your meat, or you are serving rotten meat to your customers.

On the packaging the fist three numbers of the Julian Date are the day of the year and the fourth number is the last number of the year. So "0360" is February 5, 2010.

IIRC, this is ordinal date, not Julian date.

(damn it, haven't posted anything quite that nerdy for ages... )

Strictly speaking, yeah, I guess it is. The program materials for this nonsense calls it a "Julian Date."

 

[scotpens]

IIRC, this is ordinal date, not Julian date.

(damn it, haven't posted anything quite that nerdy for ages... )

Strictly speaking, yeah, I guess it is. The program materials for this nonsense calls it a “Julian Date.”

Who wrote your program materials -- a medieval monk?

The European Catholic countries switched from the Julian calendar to the more accurate Gregorian calendar in 1582. Most Protestant countries converted their calendars within the next 200 years. The last holdout was the Greek Orthodox church, which didn't adopt the new calendar until the 1920s.

 

[ed629]

I worked a job where I was the property/facility manager. Which meant that some of my responsibilities included ordering equipment, making sure the company vehicles/equipment was maintained, etc.

That also meant I was responsible for making sure that all the vehicles were inspected an registered when they needed to be. Well.... I needed a letter/document that indicated I had permission to do so when I did. Yep, I had to write a letter saying that I was giving myself permission to do so by the company... had to do that with several other responsibilities involving company property or equipment.

 

[T'Girl]

The European Catholic countries switched from the Julian calendar to the more accurate Gregorian calendar in 1582. Most Protestant countries converted their calendars within the next 200 years. The last holdout was the Greek Orthodox church, which didn't adopt the new calendar until the 1920s.

The US Air Force used the Julian date system through the mid nineties (maybe still do) with documents in their supply system. My mom said the date was always up in the corner of the form, they did the last number of the year first then the day of the year