Useless Conversation

[Chimpy]

Ok back to my vacation planning questions for you folks living on those two large English speaking islands north of France:

If I were to "hire" (we say rent round these parts) a car, are there any places I should avoid? With the whole driver on the right, are the pedals still accelerator on the right as in proper vehicles? Also is the manual shift pattern upper left = low gear?

Oh yes, how much does fuel cost a liter?

Thank ye muchly.

[Yegolev]

Being an American that has driven in Scotland, the summary is that the only thing you will have to deal with is sitting on the right, shifting with your left hand, and remember where you are when turning on city streets.  Meaning, left is OK and right is LOOK OUT.

[ghost]

I attempted to drive in the UK.  I got about a mile before I realized that I was messing with something that I wanted no part of.

[JWIV]

I did it in Ireland, and fuel was fucking expensive, but I got used to the wrong side of the road deal after a day or so.

[Yegolev]

Also roundabouts.  Those bastards love'em.  Fortunately there really weren't very many people there, so it wasn't much of an issue.

[Zetor]

My driving teacher back in HS told me that roundabouts were the best/safest road construct ever invented. Based on that, Brits are probably the safest drivers in the universe.

Obligatory roundabout pic (insert yo dawg as you see fit):

[IainC]

They are 100% more sensible than those dumb four-way stops and much better at controlling flow than light controlled junctions.

[Cyrrex]

Now that I am used to them (Denmark uses them quite a lot), I have to agree.  Roundabouts > Stop Lights.  The rules can be tricky in some of the bigger ones where you have two or even three lanes, because you have to know when you are allowed to switch lanes.  That gets hairy.  But yeah, way better for traffic.  I also can't recall every seeing a major accident in one.

[Merusk]

But if we had roundabouts in the US, how would we continue to produce mid-season cliffhangers and thrilling car chases where the hero gets through but the villain is stymied by a collision?!

(I love 'em.  I hate stopping for signs, particularly since nobody fucking understands "Right car goes first" anymore.)

[Chimpy]

Roundabouts don't really bother me. And since the vast majority of the time I would spend driving would be on rural highways and roads getting around Ireland, the number of huge wacky ones I would have to deal with is minimal.

More concerned about which rental companies are definite DON'T USE ones.

Europcar seems to have the best deals I can find of "major" rental companies. Enterprise has decent deals too it seems.

[Selby]

Opened up the dispute, are checking their records, and "will let me know in 7 to 10 business days."

And the verdict is "not our problem, it will remain on your credit report for 4 more years."  Sweet.  I officially owe 250k on a closed account that I don't own that was paid off, and now I can't get any type of loan or credit because I'm considered "delinquent" until 2016.

[Chimpy]

Sounds like something worth talking to someone in the legal profession about.

[Salamok]

Opened up the dispute, are checking their records, and "will let me know in 7 to 10 business days."

And the verdict is "not our problem, it will remain on your credit report for 4 more years."  Sweet.  I officially owe 250k on a closed account that I don't own that was paid off, and now I can't get any type of loan or credit because I'm considered "delinquent" until 2016.

Somewhere there is documentation for this pay off.  Find it and your problem is solved.  Also IIRC under the FCRA you get to collect fines if they are incorrectly reporting debt you do not owe.  The art of credit forum (unfortunately no longer around) used to have all kinds of useful info (some boilerplate legal documents + step by step instructions) on representing yourself to resolve these issues and collect the fines.

[Abagadro]

Who is telling you that, the bank or the credit reporting agency?

[Merusk]

I just want to take a moment to grouse at Yegolev for leaving Coca-Cola with such a weird e-mailing address system.

3 contacts.. all with totally different formats.
<3 letters><lastname>
<1st letter><lastname>
<firstname>.<lastname>

Makes remembering which one of my contacts has the wrong info on my distribution list a bitch.

[Salamok]

As long as your mail admin didn't create accounts with spaces, double quotes, pound symbols (or any other symbols) then you should just be grateful that shit works.

[Selby]

Who is telling you that, the bank or the credit reporting agency?

Both.  The bank indicated that the official notice is in the mail and the agency just backed them up.

I do have all the paperwork showing everything was taken care of, forgiven, paid off, and all that for each loan (2" of paper filed away) so I'm sure it can be resolved *eventually* it just pisses me off that the simple solution didn't work.

[NowhereMan]

Fuck work has gotten unpleasant. Small company, part family owned business and I'm one of the family. The MD is a great guy but most of the people running stuff are working/living abroad and we've got a London office handling sales/support on stuff and some other things. Recently brought on someone to help us get some accreditation stuff and, since the office was just getting started up and we'd need to be changing/implementing systems for that she was offered a position as operations manager to oversee all that stuff. My 'position' had been pretty vague as there was simply so much stuff going on in terms of setting things up and getting stuff rolled out before and, not having much experience with running an office, it was fairly chaotic. She's taken charge and is a fucking nightmare to work with, I got asked to 'be over the customer support team' by her which happened at a meeting I missed ages ago. It's not really what I want to do but there isn't anyone else that's really in a position to do the job but the result is that she wants to be 'informed' regarding everything I might do, which generally means I get a choice between spending half an hour as she explains how she wants it done or an hour and a half over the next week having to explain and justify why I'm not doing something the way she wants me to do it. Whiney example being I set up a Google Calendar to track the hours people are working as it lets me keep track of them and people can view it as well so they know when they're meant to be working and can see what I'm going to be basing their pay on versus her system of a sheet in the filing cabinet for signing off over-time or missed hours. That took a whole fucking week of talking about and 40 minutes showing her how Google Calendar works, which she still doesn't really get.

I can't quite decide if she's an awful manager or if I'm being touchy that she's come in and started acting very much as my boss. I suspect it's a bit of the latter and a lot of the former as her method of arguing why I should do something a certain way largely consists of repeating how she wants me to do it and asking if I understand. Quick question to try and clear that up: There are a few other people in the office that really don't like working with her, one of them has been complaining to me about it a lot and had said that he thinks the other people he works with haven't been as happy since she started. I had wanted to try and clear things up and try and get her to see that her management style was overly controlling and making people unhappy (yes I know, stupid fucking move. I should have just told him to tell her directly) The result of that was she grabbed the two people who by this point had only had someone else's opinion of them related by a third party, and she asked them what their problem was with her and what they'd been saying and then called me in and had them tell me that they didn't have a problem with her. It felt fairly awkward for all involved. Does that sound anything like the right way to handle that? If it helps we have no HR person, Sand territroy ahoy!

[Paelos]

Well, there are a couple of things to consider in your situation.

1 - Because the business is partly family owned, is it possible she sees you as a by product of nepotism?
2 - Is the business operating better or worse in terms of production since she came on board? Not moods, numbers-wise is what I mean.
3 - Why did you miss the meeting where she described her thoughts on what you should control?
4 - Does she publicly call people out, or does she deal with issues in her office behind closed doors?
5 - Was there a lack of management control when she was hired?

[NowhereMan]

1 - The nepotism thing is certainly something I've considered, I'm also not sure if she's veering between treating me as the bosses son and then as her assistant. So she's not happy to give me any control over what I'm doing but doesn't want to just tell me that.
2 - In terms of productivity, I don't think there's been any great change. As I said most of it's the customer support stuff I've been dealing with and she hasn't really played any role in what they're doing. In terms of money - we've been lucky to have a good cash flow being generated and really need to start looking more closely at our costs. The business is very young (started really as a spin-off company) and has grown massively in the last 6 months or so, hence the general chaos as it's gone from having a staff of 3 in 3 different countries to having about 30 people working in it.
3- I missed that management meeting because I also do bits and pieces with the main family business, in this case there was a mini-emergency that had cropped up and I just didn't think much of skipping the meeting to deal with it. My future position hadn't exactly been on the agenda.
4 - She hasn't called anyone out, although she very much prefers dealing with people one on one, which gets confusing sometimes as there's been quite a few instances where what she says happened and what the other person says happened differs. I don't think she's intentionally dishonest but she doesn't seem to be great at listening to people and isn't always clear herself. I know that at least one of the people that has been complaining about her to me has talked to her about it, or at least he's told me he's talked to her about it she claims he's never mentioned anything to her.
5 - There was a lack of management control, largely related to the fact that we hadn't really put much in the way of systems in place. That's not to say that work wasn't getting done but it wasn't really being properly monitored, largely because it was getting done and there were so many other issues or work to do that it didn't become the priority it should have been.

I realise at least part of my issues with her are down to me, in the sense that I think her vision of my position isn't really what I thought I was meant to be doing and I think a lot of my own frustration with it is linked to a sense of control. She wants me to run everything by her and wants me to do everything the way she wants (so I now need to text her to let he know any time anyone is sick or arranges time off) so that she feels in control. On top of that as I've mentioned she's not especially honest and she's given one person a pretty good case for harassment if he wanted it (late night texts, sometimes about work, sometimes inappropriate) that means beyond any personal thing I think she's a huge potential liability for the company. I think I'm just trying to separate out what's down to my personal feelings and whether she's not doing a great job as a manager. It would be a lot less stressful if I was willing to devote a lot more of my time to managing her in the sense of spending a lot of my time making sure I knew exactly what she wanted me to do and how she wanted it done and if I really didn't care about doing things in the best way it would also be easier.

On top of everything else though, she's a big fan of the Secret and drives me up the fucking wall telling everyone they need to read it and talking about the seminars she's going on.

[Paelos]

Well I think it boils down to this. She's trying to entrench herself and sees you as a threat. It's not that she's consciously thinking about it that way, but she realizes you have a natural connection to the business through the family, and she doesn't. She also probably believes that people with a family connection are going to inherently not listen because they can always run to daddy. So, she wants to know what you are doing because she's worried you will try to undermine her.

My advice would be to settle your feelings with her one on one. Tell her you feel like part of what she's doing is micromanagement of what you are doing, and that you have no problem doing the larger position of what she wants done. Tell her you aren't here to go running off to daddy if things get tough, because that's not the way you operate, and you hope that you can work together to really grow the business. What you need to try to accomplish is a way to assuage her fear that you're trying to get rid of her through your connections and indifference to her authority, while also explaining that she needs to let you do your job without interfering based on those fears.

[Ironwood]

Your company has made an unfortunate hire that it needs to correct.

[Salamok]

Your company has made an unfortunate hire that it needs to correct.

This is my gut feeling on the limited info as well, she sounds like a typical paranoid fake it till you make it type.  Tell pops you want to go focus on the main family business and would like to minimize your contact with this person ;)

edit: In this day and age trying to build schedules on cocktail napkins is a huge clue, technical competency should be a top priority when vetting candidates.

[NowhereMan]

Well I think it boils down to this. She's trying to entrench herself and sees you as a threat. It's not that she's consciously thinking about it that way, but she realizes you have a natural connection to the business through the family, and she doesn't. She also probably believes that people with a family connection are going to inherently not listen because they can always run to daddy. So, she wants to know what you are doing because she's worried you will try to undermine her.

My advice would be to settle your feelings with her one on one. Tell her you feel like part of what she's doing is micromanagement of what you are doing, and that you have no problem doing the larger position of what she wants done. Tell her you aren't here to go running off to daddy if things get tough, because that's not the way you operate, and you hope that you can work together to really grow the business. What you need to try to accomplish is a way to assuage her fear that you're trying to get rid of her through your connections and indifference to her authority, while also explaining that she needs to let you do your job without interfering based on those fears.

I've tried to do this already. Her response was the she doesn't micromanage, that is in fact how you manage people I simply don't understand because I haven't run an office before. She just needs to have someone show her exactly how something is done and observe them do it step by step so she can be confident that they can do it and she knows what they're doing. The talk was less than productive.

Sorry if it comes across as whiney, the whole situation with her has been pretty much taking up space in my head for the past couple of weeks and I wanted to confirm it isn't just me being crazy/an asshole. I appreciate said confirmation is coming from people that have limited information entirely my from my point of view but this isn't a situation I've been in before in terms of really not getting on with someone. I've had bosses before but noone that's been so controlling. It's not something I've really taken to anyone in a serious fashion just because I've been hoping it was just her settling in. Plan at the moment is to 'go running to daddy' in the sense of making sure everyone knows what I feel is going on and moving to another area that won't require working with her, fortunately there's half a dozen other things that really do need to be done and we simply don't have anyone working on them at the moment so I can do that without the whole thing looking personal. I just worry that if she's made me (who is literally personally invested in the business) not want to come to work, I have no idea how anyone else will cope with her.

[Merusk]

I've tried to do this already. Her response was the she doesn't micromanage, that is in fact how you manage people I simply don't understand because I haven't run an office before. She just needs to have someone show her exactly how something is done and observe them do it step by step so she can be confident that they can do it and she knows what they're doing. The talk was less than productive.

"How about we assume we hired competent people before you were brought on and let them continue doing their jobs and you step in if there's a problem.  After all, if that isn't the case, what does it say about your own competence, ma'm, that you feel all we've hired is nincompoops?" 

On the one-on-one meetings thing, sounds like there's recap e-mails that need to happen after meetings.  "This is what we discussed, this is what my understanding of our action items/ decisions were.  Is this what you took away as well?"   Yes, it's a headache but is it any less of a headache than getting in a he-said/ she-said argument down the line?

Note: since all we're hearing is your side of things, of course we're going to support you.  Part of this sounds like it could be you having to adjust from a small company setup to a larger company setup.  Shit doesn't work the same way between the two and it could be your own misunderstanding/ frustration with how things now are vs. how they were.  You need to discuss this with her boss and see if you have a misunderstanding of what her role is supposed to be, and your own, since she's unwilling to have that conversation with you. 

That said, she definitely sounds like she's micromanaging, but if she's Ops manager and is your boss in this new hierarchy that's just something you'll have to suffer through.

[Ironwood]

No, I'm sorry, I disagree.  If Nowhere is a cunt, I'll let him know.  It didn't stop me with Sand.

This woman is an arsehole who shouldn't be there.  She's going to fuck it up sooner or later because I've met her before, many, many times.  This is a situation where a competant person would tread lightly and then slowly gain trust and brand their own way of doings things on people.  The fact she's come steaming in like this shows a huge misunderstanding of the dynamics of the workplace and clearly she's rocking boats already.   I mean, for fucks sake, family business ?  Fighting with the Son ?  Even if you're an utter fucking dickhead IRL Nowhere, this is not what someone with a fucking brain does.

As you're aware, the place I worked previously replaced the Operations Director with one of these type of cunts and not only did he chase the good staff off, he was eventually fired 3 years later for just being an incredible cock bag.

Get.  Rid.

[Soln]

This woman is an arsehole who shouldn't be there. 

Get.  Rid.

He's right.  People like that at whatever age don't change.  And there's the familial entitlement thing going on.  Not going to work out. 

Also, if you guys are a family business and you don't have clear roles or contracts then you're doomed.

[Furiously]

Do you have an organization chart? Seems like that would solve a lot of issues. And I'm with Ironwood on this one.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah, she's had someone working on prettying it up. She had them do an hour of fucking overtime making it look nice (they're professionally qualified with a Masters in graphic design, previously was in charge of small team on big budget movie CGI things and just got burned out. In many ways an example of how lucky we've been in terms of really talented staff) and it definitely has me directly under her and someone else, apparently now I'm an assistant manager. I'm taking the familial entitlement thing on board, there's definitely an element of that to it as well as the adjustment to working in a larger company with a stricter hierarchy but I think IW and Salamok have gotten a pretty good picture of it. My resentment at being told what to do is part of my situation but she's definitely bad news for the company. Over the Christmas period stuff was fairly chaotic when she first came on board and the woman who was basically going to be doing the job I'm doing wasn't asked to sign a contract because she was apparently being extremely negative about everything and people felt that she was going to just poison the atmosphere. I wasn't really involved, a big part of why I'm there is that there really wasn't anyone else who could fill the position (hence the lack of clarity in the role). The impression I've gotten from other people in the office now is that she was butting heads with Manager X and shuffled out, I don't know if that's what happened and certainly am not going to start fucking digging around asking questions but it really wouldn't surprise me.

On the plus side everyone else who works there is pretty bright and they're nice people, I remain optimistic she can't fuck things up too much too quickly. The advice is welcome.
Edit: Just to add, I wouldn't have a problem just following orders if I felt she was competent or they were the right things to do, I'm not that big of an asshole. Most of the stuff I've had as ongoing 'discussions' with her are cases where she has done shit like ask someone to print out a load of forms to hand out people, collect them back in, type them up and then print out the typed documents to put in their personnel file. I probably wouldn't have said anything but the girl she'd asked to do it (the one with a MA in graphic design) wasn't comfortable doing it because 1) it was dumb and 2) she didn't want to be reading everyone's bank details and salaries. Sincere apologies if I'm ranting a bit, it's just been taking up most of my life for the past two weeks. Didn't even spend this much time on Skyrim, I think my priorities need working on.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, next time she asks you to do something, tell her you'd rather take an arrow in the knee.

That'll do it.

[Nebu]

I often say "No" when an upper administrator makes a stupid request at work.  It forces them to either confront me with the basis for their request or validate their request with their own superiors.  99.9% of the time they come to their own conclusion that the request was either stupid or merely a power play and give up.  

Not that I'm suggesting anyone do this...

[ghost]

So I bought a straight razor today.  Apparently I don't quite know how to use it.   

[NowhereMan]

 

Part of me understands the attraction but the potential for horrific injury and the effort in not just learning how to use it but in maintaining the edge is just way too much. I shave with a safety razor and a brush/soap but don't think I'll ever be brave enough to take the leap to a cut-throat.

[ghost]

To be honest with you, the big reason I wanted to give it a go is the massive waste that goes with disposable razors, not to mention the cost.  I can't use electric razors, either, as they make me break out like crazy.  I think I was getting the hang of it towards the end, but it's definitely not something you want to do with a 3 year old in the room with you.   

[MuffinMan]

Sometimes it's nice to have a baby face. It's water and Mach razor for me to get at the stray cheek hairs.