Before you get your mind out of the PG-13 frame of thinking, let me clarify... this will be a rant. When I refer to nutjobs, I refer to the noun interpretation (check urban dictionary for the verb version of it, if you really didn't get the drift) of the word nutjob.
Let me also preface what I am about to say by adding a disclaimer... I do not usually write about my work that much. Its not because I don't have the urge to, it is more because it is inappropriate and I don't need to get fired. I have bills to pay... but at the risk of getting yelled at or worse, I feel the need to write about the nutjobs I have to deal with. Lets just say that my sanity is on the line and my ability to be civil is fraying away.
Of late, my work has started to give me ulcers in my tummy. Don't get me wrong, its not as stressful as my Support gig in Vancouver. But it is getting to the point where I am starting to feel nostalgic for those days. Its quite scary that I am having such delusional thoughts.
My manager in DC is an enigma. At times, I think he's a decent person. At other times I wonder how I was so dumb as to move out here after talking to him. He's a character. He reads a lot. Has lots of great ideas. I don't think I have that big an ego, so I'll go ahead and say it, he's smart. But not as smart as he thinks. I give him credit for accomplishing all that he does. But he is no Albert Einstein. Or Justin for that matter. I worked for Justin for a very short time. I've said this before and I will say it again: I have never had a better manager. He brought ideas to the table. He asked us what we thought. He explained why he brought those specific ideas. He took your ideas and evaluated it. And if he disagreed, he explained why. He laid out tasks neatly. He helped when you lagged behind. He has zero ego. He freely shared knowledge. Not in the you're-stupid-and-I-need-to-show-you-how-dumb-you-are manner. Even when I was in Support.
So, this character, Director NutJob, let me tell you about him. He means well for the most part. Except he has no tact, is very rude and is probably one of the many reasons why I am starting to dislike DC. He adores his daughter. Somehow though, that seems to be reason enough for him to send us pictures of her and what not. Fair enough, everyone is proud of their accomplishments. I have reservations categorising a child in such a manner, but I hope that for the purpose of demonstrating the sort of person he is, that is a reasonable bit of liberty to take.
He can be nice, like when he let me go work out of Vancouver. He's usually not too picky about what time anyone gets in or leaves. But he can be incredibly rude. I have on more than one occasion noticed how he talks about people and frankly, it gives me the wrong impression. He's incredibly immature too. He has, in the past talked about other people in the company in ways that are just wrong. He thinks highly of himself and looks down on others. Quotes like, why department X is always taking 3 hour lunch breaks on the couches... are normal for this character. Never mind that department X, for all of their alleged faults does most of their work in a reasonable and efficient manner.
The way he talks about people also shows how little regard he has for people. He has on many occasions described former employees and even current ones with terms that would probably make HR cringe. But who cares right? He's is the director of a department. But really, who cares right?
He works like a dog. I just hope his family realises that. But then again, that is none of my concern. What he does is expects that out of others. He tells you to accomplish things in time-frames that are incredibly un-achievable. He has no ability to realistically estimate the time taken to do anything. He has very little ability to realise that others have lives. Maybe not fancy ones with weekened get-away cabins by the ocean... but lives none-the-less.
He's a below average teacher. He can explain things in some detail and with some degree of clarity. Except he skips some things or assumes you understand those things implicitly. He will go to great lengths to teach you and go over it again and again. He reads plenty of text books. He gets ideas from them and then decides to go about implementing them. Except we end up doing a half-baked job. I sometimes feel like the onlookers in the Don Quixote story. Or maybe I am Sancho Panza, the half-wit who goes along with the lunatic.
The number of projects he single-handedly starts, and throws the rhythm of the team out of sync is incredible. I've probably worked on at least a dozen things so far that I have abandoned or left by the way-side because it simple became too much. We have this board on which we write up what we have to do everyday. New entries keep cropping up. Old ones go, but only because we erase them on purpose (without accomplishing them) or because we've abandoned it.
He is a text-book kind of person. Without the professor type attitude. I can sort of put up with that. I don't know how he finds time to do what he does, but he seems to. He seems to be in love with process. Except he will not follow it. One of his trademark traits is to show up by your desk and casually ask you to completely alter what you've worked on for 2 weeks. Because he read something somewhere. Now, I am all for changing things for the better. It makes sense to correct something if you're doing it wrong. But lets talk about it at least or at least prove out why that way is better. No. We don't do that. He come by at the most inopportune moment. Then he throws this idea your way and tells you to implement it. Oh yeah, no shit. I hate that. HATE IT. I've invested time in what he asked for. Now I have to get rid of it all. And he expects it all to work like magic the next time he comes to chat with you.
He can pry in your personal matters in ways that are not worth mentioning. I've seen him do that though. Anyway, that the first nutjob I work with. I can deal with this one. There are days when I give him a nice blog entry that basically says fuck you in not so many words. He makes us blog. I use it as my means of communicating and protesting. Maybe the larger company sees it and will hopefully get some sense of the craziness that we put up with. The worst thing he has done to date is hire this box-checker as my new manager. The second worst thing he did was move us to a fully carpeted (wall-to-wall carpet and carpet covered walls) office area away from the rest of the product development team. I hate him for that. Allegedly we were getting distracted by our peers. So we had to move.
Box-checker; otherwise known as Geiger is an annoying rat faced twit. He is all about nothing. He likes to repeat what you say. He likes to send well formatted emails. You know the kind where there are hyperlinks... that kind. With proper formatting. Because he has time.
Geiger has such favourite words as... so what you're saying is... and ... I already knew that.... This deserves a drawn out example.
Geiger: Hey, got a second?
Me: , sure, what's up?
Geiger: I was wondering if you could tell me/give me feedback/guidance/point me to blah
Me: sure, go search on the wiki etc etc
Geiger: repeats what I said with different sentence structure
Me: sure... I guess
Geiger: And how does blah work?
Me: explains it so that a two year old can understand
Geiger: So, what you're saying is blah
Me: Yes
Geiger: Oh, I already knew that
Me: silently wishes him diarrhoea
He also comes by after sending you emails. I wanted to discuss blah with you, I just emailed you about it... lets meet and discuss. I hate that. HATE IT. If you send me an email and I don't respond to you, it is likely because a) I haven't seen it, b) I don't know wtf you're asking of me, c) I have better things to do, d) I am busy working e) I don't know or f) I don't care, so go away.
What else does he do? Oh this is a great one. He'll come by and try to help you. Except he won't. He'll waste your time. Talk away. At length. On subject he has absolutely no idea about. He uses flowery filler words. Like feedback and guidance. He'll conclude (usually after I just stop responding to him for a while) that he's done his job and throw in a time-frame when he expects blah to be completed by so he can review it and comment on it and provide guidance on it. How about I provide guidance to a inertial guided JDAM up to your behind?
He'll schedule meetings. About meetings in the past. To go over the main points (which he will jot down on the wiki and send out to people... usually inaccurate). For the next meeting on the same god-damned thing. Meetings about meetings to prepare for meetings. He makes no attempt to understand what he's trying to meet on. Or maybe he's just thick. I've taken to blocking off big chunks of time on my calendar so he can't schedule another one of his dumb meetings.
He uses such lovely excuses as... I have no context on this... I am new... I am not stupid, I am just new... I don't understand the process... at my old company, we did ... Hell, I bet you, if he knew what the Ides of March were, he would work that into his meetings or conversations some how. He also uses annoying, absolutely annoying phrases that have to do with balls... I want to get the ball rolling on this, I don't want us to drop the ball, once the ball gets rolling, we'll have some momentum... I sometimes wish a very large ball will fall down and smother this box checker.
I think there has been some kind of miscommunication between Director NutJob and Geiger. Geiger does no real work. He tells other people what to do. He then proceeds to put that in Microsoft Project. Then he sends you screenshots of it. And then comes over promptly to discuss it. I've tried passing work on to him. He says he's new at it. I even say, hey, what better way to learn... but no such luck. At some point, it becomes a waste of time for me to try and entice him to work on it. Just do it and get it over with. The other person Geiger can order about routinely shows her displeasure at his stupid ideas. I am not so sure I can be so blunt and not say something inappropriate, so I leave that option alone.
Geiger recently told me that I had to give him 3 months notice to book off a week of vacation. I think I laughed so hard that he stopped talking for a bit. There are many more not-so-endearing qualities that Geiger has... and if this keeps up, I will document more of them and eventually find another job.
I can't stand the second nutjob. He's too much. Its bad enough that I have to put up with Director NutJob. Now I have to put up with Manager nutjob. Together, we have a pair of people who I guess can be Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza. Except it isn't funny.
I have started to loathe my job. It took me 2 years of Support, a merger and one really nasty manager in Support for me to really, really, really hate my job back in Vancouver... but here; well, I don't need that much. I have Geiger. I seriously doubt I will stick around far into the new year, if that. With the addition of the junior nutjob, the balance of power as far as sanity goes is decidedly not in my favour. I hope Geiger gets diarrhoea. And Director NutJob gets some good ideas. Or diarrhoea.
Let me also preface what I am about to say by adding a disclaimer... I do not usually write about my work that much. Its not because I don't have the urge to, it is more because it is inappropriate and I don't need to get fired. I have bills to pay... but at the risk of getting yelled at or worse, I feel the need to write about the nutjobs I have to deal with. Lets just say that my sanity is on the line and my ability to be civil is fraying away.
Of late, my work has started to give me ulcers in my tummy. Don't get me wrong, its not as stressful as my Support gig in Vancouver. But it is getting to the point where I am starting to feel nostalgic for those days. Its quite scary that I am having such delusional thoughts.
My manager in DC is an enigma. At times, I think he's a decent person. At other times I wonder how I was so dumb as to move out here after talking to him. He's a character. He reads a lot. Has lots of great ideas. I don't think I have that big an ego, so I'll go ahead and say it, he's smart. But not as smart as he thinks. I give him credit for accomplishing all that he does. But he is no Albert Einstein. Or Justin for that matter. I worked for Justin for a very short time. I've said this before and I will say it again: I have never had a better manager. He brought ideas to the table. He asked us what we thought. He explained why he brought those specific ideas. He took your ideas and evaluated it. And if he disagreed, he explained why. He laid out tasks neatly. He helped when you lagged behind. He has zero ego. He freely shared knowledge. Not in the you're-stupid-and-I-need-to-show-you-how-dumb-you-are manner. Even when I was in Support.
So, this character, Director NutJob, let me tell you about him. He means well for the most part. Except he has no tact, is very rude and is probably one of the many reasons why I am starting to dislike DC. He adores his daughter. Somehow though, that seems to be reason enough for him to send us pictures of her and what not. Fair enough, everyone is proud of their accomplishments. I have reservations categorising a child in such a manner, but I hope that for the purpose of demonstrating the sort of person he is, that is a reasonable bit of liberty to take.
He can be nice, like when he let me go work out of Vancouver. He's usually not too picky about what time anyone gets in or leaves. But he can be incredibly rude. I have on more than one occasion noticed how he talks about people and frankly, it gives me the wrong impression. He's incredibly immature too. He has, in the past talked about other people in the company in ways that are just wrong. He thinks highly of himself and looks down on others. Quotes like, why department X is always taking 3 hour lunch breaks on the couches... are normal for this character. Never mind that department X, for all of their alleged faults does most of their work in a reasonable and efficient manner.
The way he talks about people also shows how little regard he has for people. He has on many occasions described former employees and even current ones with terms that would probably make HR cringe. But who cares right? He's is the director of a department. But really, who cares right?
He works like a dog. I just hope his family realises that. But then again, that is none of my concern. What he does is expects that out of others. He tells you to accomplish things in time-frames that are incredibly un-achievable. He has no ability to realistically estimate the time taken to do anything. He has very little ability to realise that others have lives. Maybe not fancy ones with weekened get-away cabins by the ocean... but lives none-the-less.
He's a below average teacher. He can explain things in some detail and with some degree of clarity. Except he skips some things or assumes you understand those things implicitly. He will go to great lengths to teach you and go over it again and again. He reads plenty of text books. He gets ideas from them and then decides to go about implementing them. Except we end up doing a half-baked job. I sometimes feel like the onlookers in the Don Quixote story. Or maybe I am Sancho Panza, the half-wit who goes along with the lunatic.
The number of projects he single-handedly starts, and throws the rhythm of the team out of sync is incredible. I've probably worked on at least a dozen things so far that I have abandoned or left by the way-side because it simple became too much. We have this board on which we write up what we have to do everyday. New entries keep cropping up. Old ones go, but only because we erase them on purpose (without accomplishing them) or because we've abandoned it.
He is a text-book kind of person. Without the professor type attitude. I can sort of put up with that. I don't know how he finds time to do what he does, but he seems to. He seems to be in love with process. Except he will not follow it. One of his trademark traits is to show up by your desk and casually ask you to completely alter what you've worked on for 2 weeks. Because he read something somewhere. Now, I am all for changing things for the better. It makes sense to correct something if you're doing it wrong. But lets talk about it at least or at least prove out why that way is better. No. We don't do that. He come by at the most inopportune moment. Then he throws this idea your way and tells you to implement it. Oh yeah, no shit. I hate that. HATE IT. I've invested time in what he asked for. Now I have to get rid of it all. And he expects it all to work like magic the next time he comes to chat with you.
He can pry in your personal matters in ways that are not worth mentioning. I've seen him do that though. Anyway, that the first nutjob I work with. I can deal with this one. There are days when I give him a nice blog entry that basically says fuck you in not so many words. He makes us blog. I use it as my means of communicating and protesting. Maybe the larger company sees it and will hopefully get some sense of the craziness that we put up with. The worst thing he has done to date is hire this box-checker as my new manager. The second worst thing he did was move us to a fully carpeted (wall-to-wall carpet and carpet covered walls) office area away from the rest of the product development team. I hate him for that. Allegedly we were getting distracted by our peers. So we had to move.
Box-checker; otherwise known as Geiger is an annoying rat faced twit. He is all about nothing. He likes to repeat what you say. He likes to send well formatted emails. You know the kind where there are hyperlinks... that kind. With proper formatting. Because he has time.
Geiger has such favourite words as... so what you're saying is... and ... I already knew that.... This deserves a drawn out example.
Geiger: Hey
Comments