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Name: neener
School: USC Marshall School of Business
Status: Employed...finally
E-mail: Click here!
Reason for blogging: I'm incredibly self-absorbed. |
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I'm listening to...
::"Stay Beautiful," The Last Goodnight
::"Spaceman," The Killers
::"Green Light," John Legend
::"Superstar," Lupe Fiasco
I'm watching...
::24
::The Office
I'm reading...
::Taiwan, A Political History, by Denny Roy
::The Devil and Miss Prym, by Paulo Coehlo
I've just seen...
::Slumdog Millionaire
::I Love You, Man
::The Reader
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A Helpful Hint. For people who are not that familiar with Excel are switching into a career where they will be working with Excel a lot, such as company finance, I highly recommend learning how to use "Paste Special..." function. For example, you can copy and paste just formats (instead of using the format painter button) or multiply everything by the same number or convert numbers stored as text into number format in only a few steps.
The reason I mention this is because I just had to work on a report with a coworker. We were trying to trace how some numbers were being calculated, and my coworker copied a cell from one workbook to another, went into the cell and added "=" in front of the number he had pasted and a "/1000" after, and pressed enter. Then he copied another cell from another workbook to another, went into the cell and added "=" in front of the number he had just pasted and a "/1000" after, and pressed enter. At this point, I realized that he was going to do this for every single one of the data points we were verifying. I started to feel an attack of "itchy mouse" syndrome, where I really, really, really wanted to grab the mouse out of his hand; at the same time, I felt bad because I had spent 15 of the last 20 minutes being pretty bossy, saying things like "You can do a lookup here" and "Just press F4." I did end up exercising self-restraint---after all, it wasn't like there were 50 cells---but it was still painful for me, since I absolutely detest tedious stuff such as this. Don't make your coworkers suffer the way I did.Labels: work
"Smoldering," That's Me. You might think that "smoldering" is obviously a great word to describe me. That's because when you see the world "smoldering," you probably think of "sexy," "sensual," and other words that perfectly depict me. So it's not a surprise to me that it might be a surprise to you that I'm not talking about my undeniable attractiveness today. Don't feel bad, it's an understandable mistake.
No, today, I am talking about my smoldering fury. Usually, I am civil and polite, my anger slowly burning within. But there are times when life throws fuel on the coals of my wrath, and when that happens, don't get burned by the flames of my rage! (I'll stop there because I don't want to whip out the thesaurus for more synonyms of "fury." And yes, my vocabulary is severely limited.)
There has been much fuel of late, my friends. Much fuel. And the only thing to do is let it burn. This means I am forced to call out all the things/people that fanned the flames.
WaMu/Chase (or whatever you're calling yourself these days): I fully supported you through your troubled times, but now I am pissed at you. Pissed. The first time you hit me with a return fee because there was an issue with a check I deposited, I let that slide. Mistakes happen. You told me there was something illegible on the check. I took care of it, didn't I? I got another check. A legible one. And then you hit me again with a return fee when you couldn't process the second check. So, it turns out when you said that there was something illegible on the check, that wasn't the reason the first check didn't go through. Dammit, I did what you asked and now you're penalizing me again because you didn't give me the right info? But you weren't done with me, were you? No, then you had to make me go through your stupid automated telephone system that is idiotically set up so that if a person doesn't remember their telephone access code, they can't access their account at all. You couldn't have multiple ways to access your account, say by providing two sets of identifying information like a SSN or a DOB, could you? What if it was an emergency? Your customers would be f*ed. Yeah, I dropped the F-bomb (kinda)! You forced me to enter random access codes over and over and over again until by some stroke of luck, I figured out my stupid access code. And THEN, when I finally got to a real person, I had to listen to some detailed, lame ass explanation about bank fees. I have an MBA, okay? I sat through activity-based costing. I know why there is a fee! But I also sat through marketing, and perhaps you would like to know something about customer service and how it's not nice to slap a loyal customer with a fee TWICE for the same damn thing. You better tread carefully around me from now on, WaMu/Chase.
And Microsoft Excel, what the heck do you think you are doing? I thought we were friends, but now I'm not so sure. Why do you have to be so disrespectful of my time? Oh, sure, people love to throw around the "user error" explanation, and I've done my share of that. But, really? After working against the clock to update the most tedious report I have ever had the displeasure to be responsible for, after the hours I spent copying and researching journal entries, after all the modifications I made to streamline what I could of this twisted process, you decide that when I do the responsible thing and save my file, you're just gonna make all the tabs in my workbook magically disappear. And no, all you Excel nerds, the sheets were not hidden. They were gone. A workbook without any worksheets. Oh, that's just hilarious. Is that amusement on my face or hysteria? Take a wild guess.
Oh, and I can't forget you, coworkers. My dear, dear coworkers. When I am checking my work email from home minutes before I have to leave for the courthouse because I am doing my civic duty (i.e., jury duty) and see an urgent request for some reporting which I then quickly forward to the person who trained me on similar reporting with the question, "Do you think you can do this if they can't wait til tomorrow?", is it absolutely necessary for said person to forward my message to their manager and somehow imply that I am saddling them with work that is no longer their responsibility? Is it necessary for this incident to spark off an email chain with my manager regarding the necessity of building "back up processes" which includes a grudging "we can do this for you this time because it's urgent"? Listen to me, people. Let's try not to be such douchebags. If you can't do something for me, you can tell me or find an easy workaround (which you eventually did). You don't have to be so douche-baggy about it. You don't have to imply that I'm some kind of unreliable twit and gripe and gripe and gripe. I apologize for not having a backup for an ad hoc request when the only other person in my group is as new as me, and frankly, it's not unreasonable of me to forward the ad hoc request to the person most acquainted with the requester and in the best position to gauge how to fulfill the request. Douchebaggery, politics, and the marking of territory. Feel free to do it except when I'm involved. Don't make me school you!
Whew. I'm tired. I think the flames have died down a bit. Until the next time...Labels: fury, work
Transparency at the Workplace. At the office building of my now nonexistent employer (thanks, economy!), we had no free coffee. You had to walk down two floors to the cafeteria if you wanted hot water for your tea. Each of us sat in these ugly beige cubicles, surrounded by ugly beige walls that were only occasionally interrupted by giant hanging photographs of our merchandise, tinted a depressing shade of blue.
My new office is different. Yes, for the most part you have those generic off-white and beige walls that seem to be standard for every office, but we also have accent walls. We have artwork on the walls. We have hot water a five-second walk away. A George Foreman grill in case your lunch requires grilling. Free coffee. Free drinks out of a Flavia machine. Pretty new, non-grimy cubicles. Nice, right?
Well, I have a complaint. It's those cubicles. Sure, they're clean. Sure, there's no odd sticky spot that just will not go away despite how much cleaner you spray on it. Sure, they come with a cabinet where you can hang your coat. But one of my cubicle walls is a "window"! This is not ideal.
I used to have a private office that had a terrible setup where my back faced my office door. For most people, this is bad, because they don't want people surprising them from behind while they're instant messaging or surfing some inappropriate sites or just goofing off. I don't like people looking over my shoulder either, but that's not a huge issue for me. I never surf work-inappropriate sites, and frankly, I think I'm competent and efficient enough at what I do that my bosses shouldn't give a crap if I do instant message or read the news or check my email while I'm on the job. So, usually the whole open cube thing versus having your own office doesn't bother me. It's the dang transparent window that looks out onto the rest of the floor. The only inappropriate thing I very occasionally do at work is space out. I can't help it...sometimes staring at spreadsheets for hours on end does that to me. If I spaced out in my old cube, no one could tell as they approached me, and once they did, the time it took me to swivel in my chair to face them was enough for me to recover my composure. But now I can't do that! People who approach my cube can see through the window right at my face as I look at my monitor. There is nowhere to hide! No blind spot! This is one area where I will shout a resounding "NO!" to transparency in the workplace.Labels: work
Pros and Cons This whole economy is messing things up. A lot of people are in my shoes. After being unemployed and looking at this sucky job market (it really is an employers' market), I took a job that most would consider a step back and for less pay and a much longer commute. But I can't complain. There are pros too. One, of course, is the paycheck, which one really can't take for granted nowadays. Another one is my commute. At least it's pretty.
 Labels: work
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When I learn a new word, I'll put it here so you can learn too!
EBITAS (noun):
Abbreviation for "Earnings Before Income Tax, Amortization, and SGARA." Next week, find out what SGARA is.
Click here for previous "new words." |
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