Useless Conversation

[Ironwood]

That's....unfortunate.

 

[Nyght]

Somewhere, somehow, my department manager was removed from the shopping cart approval chain for his own department.  The help desk asked me if I was sure he needed to be part of the approval chain.

Sounds as though you should uphold the finest corporate traditions and schedule a meeting to discuss it.

[Hammond]

Somewhere, somehow, my department manager was removed from the shopping cart approval chain for his own department.  The help desk asked me if I was sure he needed to be part of the approval chain.

Sounds as though you should uphold the finest corporate traditions and schedule a meeting to discuss it.

I was thinking that maybe schedule a steering meeting to discuss who should be part of the actual meeting to work on the issue.


On a personal note I have been dealing with Verizon corporate trying to turn up a new vpn connnection (complicated...)  and we literally had a meeting planning a meeting.    What should have taken 2 people 10 mins turned into 3 meetings over 3 weeks and I am still not done.  grr

[Sky]

A couple weeks ago I had a meeting about what questions to ask at another pre-meeting meeting. It was pretty awesome.

[Der Helm]

I'd start bringing my axe to work if that was a regular occurrence.

[Cheddar]

On a personal note I have been dealing with Verizon corporate trying to turn up a new vpn connnection (complicated...)  and we literally had a meeting planning a meeting.    What should have taken 2 people 10 mins turned into 3 meetings over 3 weeks and I am still not done.  grr

This made me chuckle. 

[RhyssaFireheart]

Coincidentally, I had a meeting with my dept. manager already scheduled for today so I could let him know what was going on.  But it was pretty funny seeing the look on his face when I told him he didn't have budgetary approval for his own dept for shopping carts.  For some reason, the shopping carts are jumping straight to his boss for approval, so I get to work with the help(less) desk to figure it out.  Yay me.

Yes, I'm just loving this migration to SAP.

[Ingmar]

At one point we had weekly meetings scheduled for at least 3 months that were literally just for yelling at Verizon Business and listening to their excuses. Ultimately it took them like 9 months to get us a circuit that was supposed to be I think a 8 week build originally. (Then China Telcom got us one in literally like 3 weeks. Guess who has our business...)

The wireless side of their corporate business is pretty good but the telco side is fucking clownshoes.

[Hammond]

The problem is it is a combination of wireless / vpn / wired groups.  It is part of their machine 2 machine network they are selling.  Essentially it is a private line connection over the cell network.  So I literally had 4 groups within verizon on the phone at the same time while it was just me on my end.  Don't get me wrong the technology is pretty cool but my god the hoops I have to jump through.....

[Morat20]

A couple weeks ago I had a meeting about what questions to ask at another pre-meeting meeting. It was pretty awesome.

We have a weekly telecon with our other halves in San Antonio. My boss only schedules the conference room for an hour, despite the fact that the meetings often run longer. I can't decide if he's doing it on purpose or not.

The actual meetings start out focused, but within twenty minutes veers into a 15 to 30 minute sidebar between parties in the same room that we don't need to be a part of. At all. As in "utterly and totally unrelated to our job".

It's a frustrating experience, and it happens each and every week. It's especially a PITA when there's a looming deadline and I have work to do.

[Sky]

An organization change a few years ago put a very like-minded person in charge. I have way more meetings, but they're shot, concise and get shit done. It's really improved the rate of change and we can adapt to new things a hell of a lot better than the old turning of ye battleship style.

My professional life is a lot better than it was a few years back (and it wasn't bad then), except for salary and bennies.

[Viin]

We have a weekly telecon with our other halves in San Antonio. My boss only schedules the conference room for an hour, despite the fact that the meetings often run longer. I can't decide if he's doing it on purpose or not.

The actual meetings start out focused, but within twenty minutes veers into a 15 to 30 minute sidebar between parties in the same room that we don't need to be a part of. At all. As in "utterly and totally unrelated to our job".

It's a frustrating experience, and it happens each and every week. It's especially a PITA when there's a looming deadline and I have work to do.

Tell your boss to run the damn meeting. Letting people sidebar that no one else needs to be involved in is no-no #2 in Running Meetings 101. Or, if he won't do it, you can say "can you guys talk about that later so we can get through the rest of our agenda? thanks!".

[Morat20]

Tell your boss to run the damn meeting. Letting people sidebar that no one else needs to be involved in is no-no #2 in Running Meetings 101. Or, if he won't do it, you can say "can you guys talk about that later so we can get through the rest of our agenda? thanks!".

We do. They still do it. Frequently. I think my boss only schedules the room for an hour to force those guys to focus, because "We're going to lose the room soon, so we need to get through this".

Doesn't make it any less annoying.

[Bunk]

Got me very first offer on my condo last night. It's been on the market twice now in the last year, two months so far this time, lowered the listing price one - and I finally get my first offer. 

$18,900.00 below my List price. 

It would cost me close to $10K to sell it for that. I'm desperate, but no that desperate.

Oh well, time to counter offer and see if they are really interested. I hate this market.

[Paelos]

Get as close to break even as you can and get out. It's a condo.

[ghost]

Agree with Paelos.  Get out while the getting is good.  And remember that buying something after you sell is going to be to your benefit right now.  If you wait until the market is better you might actually lose money overall because you won't be able to get as much for your dollar at that point.

[Paelos]

Also, due to my previous stints in real estate, I don't really consider condos to be investments.

If you don't don't own land, you don't own jack shit.

[ghost]

You sure do when the repair bills start coming in from the shoddy construction. 

[Ingmar]

Blackberry stuff starting to work. Now if I can just figure out how to get the people opening secondary mailboxes with IMAP to display shit in the proper subfolders everything will be pretty much done.

[Xanthippe]

I don't know why people gave up drinking a glass of wine with lunch (back in the 90s, I guess? I haven't had a paid job since then).

Instead of drinking a glass of wine at dinner time, I've been having one with lunch this week. It certainly makes my afternoon more pleasant, and I'm a lot easier to get along with.

[ghost]

I would, but I think that would be against State Board of Dentistry rules. 

I have seen quite a few business types pouring down a few martinis lately while at lunch.

[murdoc]

I love working in Oil and Gas - if you don't have a beer with lunch everyone wonders wtf is wrong with you.

[Morat20]

I love working in Oil and Gas - if you don't have a beer with lunch everyone wonders wtf is wrong with you.

Lucky bastards. Are company was so goddamn lazy that instead of sorting out who fell under Department of Transportation rules, they just decided to treat all 1500 or so people on the contract with DoT rules.

The means no alcohol within 8 hours of a shift. Even a single beer. None while on call. It's the same rules for people driving nuclear waste around.

[Paelos]

I love working in Oil and Gas - if you don't have a beer with lunch everyone wonders wtf is wrong with you.

Then you seal deals at the titty bar!

[Thrawn]

Hm, I really have a craving for pickles.  However the jar of homemade dill pickles I found in the basement is from 2005. 

They are properly sealed and everything, but Google is stilling me canned pickles should be eaten in a year, two max.  What to do, what do do....

[Viin]

Surely just one won't kill you ...

[Yegolev]

At one point we had weekly meetings scheduled for at least 3 months that were literally just for yelling at Verizon Business and listening to their excuses.

This is a delicious sentence.  Not that I have had dealings with Verizon.

As for the new service Verizon is selling, the one that combines several discrete techs... I would bet American money that the involved divisions were handed a decree by executives to work together, but no one has funded or architected a proper means to do so.  Only from experience in other large corps do I say this.

[Ironwood]

Blackberry stuff starting to work. Now if I can just figure out how to get the people opening secondary mailboxes with IMAP to display shit in the proper subfolders everything will be pretty much done.

That's a little unusual, isn't it ?  Shouldn't be doing that.  Are these Macs ?

[Bunk]

And I got them from $220k to $232,500 -  plus $1500 off the commission from my Realtor - looks like my days as a condo owner are finally over. Real Estate negotiations are funny, the longest amount of back and forth was over a $500 difference. (I won)

[Merusk]

I read a long while ago that all negotiations are like that.  You'll get to a point that both parties are missing the big-picture and are niggling over what's a small matter.  When forking over 232k is the $500 really going to break either of you? No, but it becomes ego over logic.

[Sky]

I gave up $2k on my house rather than participate in dick-waving. Which when you consider the proportions (I paid $57k), is a much more significant % than a lot of negotiations. I figure over 20 years (let alone the 30 most people finance), it's gherkins. And the property is sitting at least around 70k now.

Then I had my lawyer rake everyone over the coals because I had an attorney approval clause in the contract. Nothing better than a good lawyer.

[ghost]

Your condo is $232,000?  Geebus that must be a nice condo.  If you've got a buyer drop that shit quick.

[murdoc]

Your condo is $232,000?  Geebus that must be a nice condo.  If you've got a buyer drop that shit quick.

Vancouver. Not saying it's not nice, but that sounds probably about average, if not slightly less than what the prices out there would be.

[Hammond]

At one point we had weekly meetings scheduled for at least 3 months that were literally just for yelling at Verizon Business and listening to their excuses.

This is a delicious sentence.  Not that I have had dealings with Verizon.

As for the new service Verizon is selling, the one that combines several discrete techs... I would bet American money that the involved divisions were handed a decree by executives to work together, but no one has funded or architected a proper means to do so.  Only from experience in other large corps do I say this.

Oh that is exactly what is happening with Verizon sometimes it sucks being on the forefront of a new product.  Of course it doesn't help our Business manager (really a glorified salesperson) was the next step in the chain and he is gone.   I am not sure wtf is wrong with Verizon Wireless but we get a new account rep ever 4 - 6 months...  When I got the voicemail from our new rep "Hey I am so and so I will be your new Account rep with Verizon" in the chirpy sales person voice I blew a gasket.

[ghost]

Wow.  That's insane.  The last condo I owned went for $70K, and it was okay but not super nice.  You can get a sweet pad in San Antonio for $230,000.