Strange work procedures

[LitmusDragon]

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

For example- every year around review time we are required to type up a list of "highlights" we had accomplished over the previous year and submit it to management. Now bear in mind- we work in technical support. They already have us log every call into SAP. They meticulously track our phone stats and if anything gets out of whack they get on us about it quickly. Yet we also have to submit a written explanation of ourselves as well?

I guess a tangent of this question would be, how bureaucratic is your company? It seems to me the more bureaucratic the company, the more senseless procedures simple things entail ...

 

[Lindley]

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.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I work two state jobs. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

 

[Crash]

I had a friend who worked at Google a few years ago. He would get free lunches as a contractor, but you had to be hired on fulltime to see the menus.... That was odd, to say the least.

 

[opali]

I had a friend who worked at Google a few years ago. He would get free lunches as a contractor, but you had to be hired on fulltime to see the menus.... That was odd, to say the least.

Now that's just plain mean.

 

[Trekker4747]

Most of the things we do anymore has to be logged. I have to log temperatures on all of the refer cases two times a day, everything that's ground has to be logged, sellfish displayed has to be logged, country of origin and method of production on all fresh fish has to be logged. I swear, a full quarter of my job is filling out log books.

 

[trekkiedane]

I had a friend who worked at Google a few years ago. He would get free lunches as a contractor, but you had to be hired on fulltime to see the menus.... That was odd, to say the least.

Now that's just plain mean.

It lends a whole new layer of confusion to the term 'mystery meat' when you can't even google it!

 

[sojourner]

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

 

[jamestyler]

There was a procedure at an old job that no one could explain. Every Sunday, someone would have to go round all the offices that were closed for the weekend and flush the toilets.

Considering how quiet Sundays were - it was the highlight of the day.

 

[Trekker4747]

There was a procedure at an old job that no one could explain. Every Sunday, someone would have to go round all the offices that were closed for the weekend and flush the toilets.

Considering how quiet Sundays were - it was the highlight of the day.

Did you practice "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down."

 

[jamestyler]

There was a procedure at an old job that no one could explain. Every Sunday, someone would have to go round all the offices that were closed for the weekend and flush the toilets.

Considering how quiet Sundays were - it was the highlight of the day.

Did you practice "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down."

I did not - however due to the shares toilets and my colleagues eating habbits, I did use the empty offices as my own private facilities

 

[FordSVT]

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.

 

[Jan]

I've always made it a point when I'd take on a new job to find out *why* something was done. If nobody could give me a reason other than "I was trained to do that." or "We've always done it that way.", I'd eliminate it. Nobody above me ever once noticed the change.

For example, on one auditing job I took a supervisory position on, somebody, before balancing the charges would sit there and put them in order, lowest amount to highest. At first I got the above answers and finally somebody came up with a reason that almost made sense: Because if you're researching a particular check, having them in that order made it easier to find. That was true. And how often did they have to research checks? Oh, maybe once a week. And how long does it take for somebody to sit there sorting. At least an hour a day. And how long does it take to go through the checks for that period when you're researching? Maybe 5 minutes.

I immediately made them stop and most of the staff was grateful. One lady fought me tooth and nail because she liked to take her time and get a few minutes per day of overtime. I finally had to threaten to write her up in order to get her to stop.

Jan

 

[John Clark]

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

 

[Holdfast]

I work for the public sector.

Ergo, half my working life is pointless bureaucracy & needless form-filling. And no, you cannot eliminate it by pointing out the nonsense. In fact, that would just draw attention to the fact that you don't actually do it and just keep ignoring it. Usually the admin side changes frequently enough that they never really "catch up" to what you've done or not done...

The paperwork has become so pervasive it even affects my posts here. I just noticed I was tautological enough to type out "pointless bureaucracy" AND "needless form-filling". And now I've typed them all out twice.

Damn it all...

 

[Omnius]

I recently broke my ankle and policy dictates that the surgery has to take place in a military hospital 100km away from home while there's a perfectly capable hospital nearby (20km).
They did however arrange transport... a driver from my Academy (which is 125km away) picked me up, drove me to the hospital and dropped me off back home.

 

[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.

 

[Trekker4747]

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].

 

[ByrdMan]

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?

 

[Kestra]

I thought there would be some totally interesting and bizarre work-related stories in here, but instead all I find is talk of logging mundane details! Come on, surely there are stranger things that you have to do at work?