You know your company is short staffed when...

My coworker's husband works for a local company that has a branch located 2 hours away. That location is a small warehouse with only 5 employees. They currently have 2 people on vacation, 2 sick, and the 5th out due to injury. So what are they going to do?  They are closing the office today and tomorrow. Yesterday my customer's husband drove up and staffed it. Did I mention he's the IT guy? He was pulling orders and loading delivery trucks with a forklift. That is a definite sign that your company is short staffed.

Perspective is an amazing thing

I was not looking forward to returning to work Tuesday after my recent vacation. Who does? But that all changed after I talked to a friend who still works at my former employer. After she gave me the scoop on several recent developments there, I practically skipped off to work Tuesday morning. I was so relieved to not be going back to something like that. It's amazing how perspective can influence one's attitude.

Workplace Drama is Everywhere

My company rents office space from Organization X. Their Executive Director got fired a couple weeks ago, their HR person got suspended yesterday, and they had no finance person at all for several weeks which lead to a major problem with their payroll. It's is definitely dysfunctional, but it's sure fun being on the outside looking in. In my last job I worked in HR, and I got to see all this up close and personal whether I wanted to or not. 

I have come to the conclusion that like families, every work environment is dysfunctional in some form or fashion. Organization X just seems to be especially blessed in this department.

This person was teaching your children- update

Yet another scary story from the person who was recently teaching someone's children.

This week she asked for a phone book so she could look up information on a company where she had applied for work. A few minutes later she said "Hobby Lobby isn't in this phone book.". She handed the book back to me. It was opened to the "Dental" section in the yellow pages! I immediately flipped to the "H" section of the white pages, found it, and gave it back to her. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Why you have to pay attention to your bills

The promotional pricing on my home phone and internet expired last month, so I called and made some changes. I did a one year service agreement and downgraded my internet speed in return for a reduced bill. Imagine my surprise when I opened my bill the next time, and the amount was higher than I was quoted. I saw that I was still being billed for the faster internet speed that I no longer received. When I called customer service, they came to same the conclusion. They have no idea how this happened, and I was on hold for some time while they unsuccessfully tried to deduce how that was possible. I received a free month of internet without even having to ask. 

This is yet another illustration of why you must pay attention to your bills, not blindly pay them. If I hadn't, I would have overpaid every month. Take the time each month to really look at your bills. You may be surprised by what you find.

Only in government- update

They finally got our inbound calls working again Tuesday. Took just a tad under 3 weeks. 

But wait, it gets better. My computer at work had to be reimaged last week due to a virus. It then took a week for someone to restore my e-mail access (long story). When they go it up and running today, I found out that when it was originally configured, it was set up so that all the messages were stored on my computer, not backed up on the server. I have lost every single message I've ever sent or received. I miss the technology from my private sector job. 

Only in government

Further proof that I no longer have a real job

Two weeks ago today I looked down and noticed that our phones weren't working. We lease space from an area nonprofit, so I gave the appropriate building contact a call. He said "I bet you're calling because you're phones I down. I unplugged them. We are going to sell that system. I'll plug them back in".

Some back story: a year ago the building installed a new phone system without any contact with us. We've been able to make outbound calls with it since then, but our inbound calls have continued to be received via the old system. We've talked to building management and the appropriate person in our organization (who works in another city) about this issue on multiple occasions, but it's never been resolved.

Well, apparently the old system is now down for the count. For the last two weeks, we have been unable to receive calls made to our office phone number. The only way to contact us is to call the building and then either be transferred or to punch in our extension. We do not have direct dials to our desk. Of course, essentially no one knows how to do this as all we ever give out is the office number (being me, I had provided the other method to my friends and family right after I started a year ago). The crazy thing is, our management, working out of another office, doesn't seem to be too concerned. Can you imagine if this happened at a real business? People would be fired, there would be talks of leases being broken, etc. Not when you're government. We, the employees, have naturally greatly enjoyed not receiving calls from the general public.

But wait, it gets better. One day last week we couldn't make any outbound calls either. We also found out that when you called the building it said "You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service." We immediately reported the issue, and it was fixed in an hour or two. The problem? The building hadn't paid its phone bill in 3 months! The maintenance person was on medical leave, their finance person quit/got fired, etc. It's a very interesting place.