Dissapointment. The only word to describe the day.
Little Boss was supposed to be on a business trip for two days. At the exact time his flight was to be taking off, he walked in the door at 8:11am. WHAT????? Why is he here? Why didn’t he tell me he had cancelled his trip? Was he trying to trick everyone into thinking he was still going on his trip?
Since Little Boss normally comes in at 9:00am, he is 49 minutes early. Geez, it’s going to be a long day!
By 9:03am, he’s looking for Captain Obvious, who’s normal start time is 9:00am. Little Boss walks over to Captain Obvious’ dark office and says “Captain Obvious isn’t here YET??”. Wow, Captain Obvious is 3 minutes late and he’s already throwing a fit? Yikes, not a good sign. So at 9:10 Captain Obvious strolls in, very surprised to see Little Boss there! The second Little Boss heard Captain Obvious’ door open, he was out of his seat and in Captain Obvious doorway!
And you wouldn’t BELIEVE what conversation they had! Yes, it was the weekly update of the computer program that Captain Obvious was supposed to have completed ONE year ago!!!! He JUST got there and Little Boss needs an update! It MUST be Groundhog Day, because I’m hearing the same exact conversation I hear EVERY week from the two of them!
By 9:16am, it was Little Boss’ first smoke break. He’s stressing hardcore, he usually has the first one around 10am! It’s going downhill fast.
Legal Eagle came back from a business trip and it was her first day back in the office. Which only means one thing: 2 hour gossip lunch with Little Boss to gab about all the drama that “we’ve” created, not Little Boss. Those two are 2 peas in a pod, they deserve each other.
Meanwhile, 2 days prior in the early morning, I had given two purchase order requisitions to Little Boss for his approval. I’m STILL waiting on them. But, I sent him a proposal that HE’S been waiting on, he immediately printed it out, signed, and brought it back for me to send back. UMMM, what happened to MY purchase orders I’M waiting for from you??? People need supplies!! The kitchen is getting bare!! WTH??? But then I remember, it’s HIS world and we just live in it! So I brought it up to him “Hey, Um, Little Boss? Did you happen to get those purchase order requests I emailed to you on Tuesday morning?”. “Oh yes” Little Boss replies, “but I just haven’t had a chance to look at them. I’ve been really busy!”. Ohhhh, you have, had you? Let’s do the math. Since I sent you those requests, you had 6 cigarette breaks on Tuesday, and at 10 minutes each, that’s an extra hour taken from work time. Yesterday was a busy day too, and you had 7 cigarette breaks, totaling 1 hour and 10 minutes stolen from work time. As of right now, you’ve had 3 cigarettes totaling 30 minutes stolen from your work day. Not to mention your two hour gossipfest lunch with Legal Eagle to b****h about how YOU run the show and how hard you work. It also doesn’t include the 45 minute phone call of BS’ing with a business associate about your favorite baseball team and their standings in the American League. OR talking about how much you need a vacation. Or how big your grandson is getting.
What conclusion have we come to? The 3 1/2 hours you’ve wasted on CRAP, when you could have take 30 seconds to look over the office supply and kitchen supply purchase request and gotten back to me with it. Don’t come crabbing to me when we freaking run out of your precious coffee you drink like it’s going out of style! I won’t be the one too blame! I try to stay on top of these things, and these are the obstacles I run into, but I’m the FIRST person he’ll blame if we run out, just watch!
So 4:05pm rolls around, and it’s time for IT Guru to go home. He stops by Captain Obvious’ office to say bye. Captain Obvious (whom I also thought was joking) says “Oh you can’t leave yet. You need to send out a mass email to our vendors before you go”. IT Guru’s like “Yeah right, see you tomorrow!” *chuckle, chuckle*. Captain Obvious says “I’m not kidding, I need you to do that before you go and you can’t go until you’ve finished that”. IT Guru came UNGLUED! He was SO mad! “WHY,WHY,WHY do you wait until I’m LEAVING to give me these things to do??? Why not 2 hours ago? And you know I can’t send that email out until you’ve updated the system. HAVE you in fact updated the system? So now I have to wait for you to update the system, THEN I can sen out your mass email, is that how it goes?”. So just before IT Guru explodes, Little Boss comes over to regulate. I use the word “regulate” loosely, it was basically a ticker tape parade for Captain Obvious. “Well, IT Guru, if Captain Obvious needs you to stay to and finish this update, then that’s what needs to happen. Whether he told you just now or two hours ago, that is besides the point”. Wow, nice pep talk. Can’t you see that this man is PISSED? Why can’t Little Boss just tell Captain Obvious to tell IT Guru sooner? Instead of making IT Guru look, once again, like a hothead???
When it was time for me to leave, I was standing in the lobby with IT Guru who is finally able to leave and he’s just standing there shaking his head. He was SO mad! He said “Wow, that Captain Obvious lives QUITE the charmed life! He gets away with EVERYTHING and I’m really tired of it!”. Poor IT Guru, no respect!
Who’s the kickaround guy in your office? Ours is IT Guru….
July 23, 2009
thesassysecretary
Reactive.
That is the only word to describe Little Boss. He sees something, he reacts. There’s no counting to 10 or “choose your words wisely” nor does he have that little voice inside his head that tells him to keep his yapper shut. It’s HIS world and we just live in it.
We used to work out one department, and then we moved to our own division. Each division has their own door security code though. So when we moved, we got our own door code and the other division had to change their door code too. We were told we could not give the other division our door code, nor were we to have theirs. According to Little Boss.
So not long after moving to the other division, we realized that we didn’t have a can opener and Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou only had a can of soup for lunch. You know, since Little Boss pays her the big bucks, she’s eating soup for lunch! Since we still have friends in the other division, Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou went over there to borrow there can opener, but instead she was given the code by the receptionist and went down the hall into the kitchen. No one had a problem with her going in their division, except the Old Lady (see blogpost titled “Hater!..). She told Little Boss that Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou had been in their division’s kitchen. She just HAD to mention it to him, didn’t she?? THIS is how big of a hater she is! She’s trying to keep Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou from eating her lunch!
Fast forward to later in the day after lunch. All you hear are the stomping footsteps of Little Boss coming down the hallway. I’m thinking he’s coming over to my desk, but he keeps on going. Where is he headed?? He stops two desks down at Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou’s desk. “Uhhhh, WHO gave you the code to the other divisions’ door? You are NOT supposed to have that code!! I hear you were over in their kitchen at lunchtime. How did you get inside their door? We have seperate codes now for a reason! They aren’t supposed to be in our division and we aren’t supposed to be in their division! I’ve already gone over this! Why were you over there??”. Poor, poor Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou! She’s beyond frazzled! She’s simply shocked that it’s SUCH a big deal that their division was our office a mere week earlier! She stammers out “Well, I…I…I just needed to borrow their can opener for my soup. That’s all I had for lunch and we didn’t have one down here. So-so-so, the receptionist gave me the code to let myself in because she was too busy to enter the code for me since she was by herself. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I just wanted to eat my soup!”. With that exlanation, do you think that Little Boss backed down after learning that it was the only thing she had to eat? Of course not! Little Boss said “Well, I don’t want to see you up there again. We aren’t supposed to be over there!”. With that, he walks away, leaving a dumbfound Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou probably a little teary eyed from the verbal attack.
As if that display of UTTER professionalism wasn’t enough, as he’s stomping back to his desk, Little Boss has the NERVE to come to a screeching halt at my desk. “Do you have the door code to the other division???”. OH HELL NO. Don’t come over to MY desk and pop off about something you know NOTHING about. He’s already been told who gave her the damn code, so why the heck is he up in my face about it?? I SLOWLY turned around and angrily looked him in the eye and said “UH, NO. I do not have the code to their door”. And then he just stands there looking at me. I sat there looking back at him with the “What else do you want?” look. I finally said “Anything else?”. Little Boss says “No. No. Thanks” and with that he walked back to his desk. Since everyone on in the ENTIRE office heard the whole altercation with Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou, my cell phone begins to blow UP with texts from my friends around the office!!!
“WHAT was that?”
“WTH is his problem???”
“What’s he so worked up about?”
“THAT was all over a FREAKING can opener??”
“OMG, he needs to get his THYROID checked!!”
“UH, Was that Jekyl or Hyde???”
“WTF is his freaking problem???”
So, I had a spare can opener at home, and I brought it in to leave in our kitchen. The next day at lunch, I quietly let Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou know that I am leaving this can opener here to avoid yesterday’s “situation”. She smiled and thanked me and everyone in the breakroom was like OMG, I cannot believe the hissy fit he threw, are you okay Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou??? She said she was fine, but her husband certainly was upset when she told him the story. OH I can imagine. I’m sure her husband would LOVE to have a few words with Little Boss!
So, of course this is now a running joke in the kitchen, someone always brings it up. If the can opener gets pushed to the back of the drawer and someone is on the hunt for it, when they find it they’ll say “Whew! It’s a good thing I found the can opener, otherwise I would have freaking starved to death! I better not go to their division, I’ll get my ass chewed out!!”.
Just a reminder, LITTLE BOSS IS A GROWN MAN ACTING LIKE THIS!!!!! BIG BABY!!!!
July 23, 2009
thesassysecretary
It had been brewing for days. Small squabbles here and there for over a week.
Then, the mother of all geek fights.
IT Guru had been mad at Captain Obvious for being such a hard head and not listening to IT Guru’s opinion. Remember, Captain Obvious is a know nothing know it all. The network server had been on the fritz and then one day, it completely crashed. On the weekend. IT Guru had to come in very early on a Sunday morning, yes I said a Sunday morning, to fix the system. He was able to patch it up to get it back online. By Tuesday morning it was starting to fail again and IT Guru and Captain Obvious had gone into the server room to try to figure out what kind of equipment they needed to buy to solve the problem. Captain Obvious ONLY does things HIS way, even if it fails 10 times. Then, on the 11th try, MAYBE he’ll concede to try things IT Guru’s way. And always, ALWAYS, IT Guru’s solution solves the problem. Well, doing this insane cycle everytime was just TOO much for IT Guru to go through yet again. So when the system started to fail, they needed to come up with a solution FAST, before Little Boss got back from his business trip. So they went into the server room to work and had closed the door due to the equipmet being so noisy. Or was that really the reason to close the door? So Captain Obvious starts telling IT Guru what to do, and that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. IT Guru’s elevated voice echoes through the office “Why do we have to go through this for the HUNDRETH freaking time?? Your way OBVIOUSLY isn’t working, Captain Obvious!!! I’m sick and tired of this insane routine we try 10 times before you allow me to give opinion!! We need to get the high capacity server, that’s it! No arguing! You’ve got to ask Little Boss to order it!! This is ridiculous! I’m not coming in on another weekend just because you don’t answer your damn phone!!”. The most maddening part is that ignorant cocky Captain Obvious lets him rant on and on and doesn’t even defend himself, making IT Guru look like a hothead. Then he gives him that condescending “There, there, don’t get so worked up” tone in his high pitched squeaky little voice. It’s so obnoxious! No wonder IT Guru snapped!
Their fight was SO loud, that Spoiled Brat had to go inside the server room to tell them that their cuss fight wasn’t appropriate for the office! Who knows how long and loud their fight COULD have gone on!!
Two days prior to this altercation, they were talking about about the first network crash that started all of this fiasco. IT Guru was in Captain Obvious’ office. The door is closed, but I can see them through the half glass wall. Captain Obvious is his annoyingly smug self, while IT Guru is spiraling downward FAST! The worst part though was that in the office next door, Little Boss and Graphics Guy were going over some new brochures and could hear the shouting match through the paper thin walls!!! But Little Boss must have been “Man Crushing” on Graphics Guy because he didn’t come out of HIS office to break up the geek fight!!
Captain Obvious treats IT Guru like absolute garbage. He is always trying to make IT Guru look bad in front of others. When the clock on my computer was 5 minutes slower than my cell phone, Captain Obvious instantly shouted “I TOLD IT Guru to take care of that!!!”. I told him “Who cares? At least we now there’s a time difference”.
We get our birthdays off as a paid workday. Last year, IT Guru’s birthday landed on a Friday. He put it on the big calendar showing that he would be off that day. So, the friday rolls around and IT Guru isn’t there and Little Boss says “Have you see IT Guru?? Did he call out sick or something??”. Does Captain Obvious pipe up and say “No it’s his birthday, remember? He’s using his day off”? Noooooo…he decides to throw IT Guru under the bus. “I HAVEN’T heard from him, I don’t know where he is!!”. Well, that throws Little Boss into a FRENZY!!! “What’s with him not calling out today? I’m really tired of this! (as if it happens ALL the time???) Give him a call and see where he’s at!!!”. That was when I had to step in!!! This meeting of the minds is getting ridiculous!!! “Ummm, today is IT Guru’s birthday! He’s using his birthday-day off since today is his BIRTHDAY! It’s on the calendar and I did hear him ask you (Little Boss) a few weeks ago for the day off”. OH, all of a sudden, Little Boss remembers IT Guru asking him for the day off! And then it’s Captain Obvious’ turn to suddenly remember! Those two put the “fun” in dysfunctional!!!
Anyone out there ever witness a geek fight in the office??
July 22, 2009
thesassysecretary
That inner voice, the hairs raising on the back of your neck, that feeling in your stomach that makes you pause.
These are all signs that you have that feeling. That inkling you get that makes you stop, turn around, and decide NOT ask your boss that question you were going to bother him with. You get these feelings because you’ve picked up on his vibe. You heard him sigh, heavily, and with an attitude.
I can hear that sigh from my desk, 20 feet away. It’s like it is being broadcast over an megaphone. Your ears are keen to that noise, even when you are knee deep in work. Like when you are sitting in traffic with the music blaring, and you hear that ever so faint Fire Engine or Ambulance siren, you turn the music down and you are now on alert. Where is it coming from? What’s the emergency? Same thing with picking up on the signs.
Rarely does Little Boss ever just blow up. You get levels of warnings and it’s all about paying attention to them. Here are a few of the warning signs:
- Huffing or Sighing loudly, with attitude
- Banging on the keyboard
- The expression “Oh, Come ON!!” when his computer doesn’t cooperate
- The expression “Give me a break!” when some program or his email won’t open
- The way he calls people in to help him. If it’s a “Heyyyy, IT Guru? Can you come here for a second?”, then he’s ok. If it’s a “Captain Obvious! Come here!”, that’s a bad sign.
- “Why did you do that????” with major attitude, bad sign, goes from level 1 to a level 10 quickly
- Walking hard and loud through the halls
- When he walks up behind you and doesn’t wait for you to finish your phone call, which is always with a customer and he RUDELY stands behind you until you are done
- When he’s throwing his hands up in the air and isn’t doing it for someone to see, he’s just so irritated he’s reacting
- When he throws anything onto your desk
- The face. No explanation necessary. Think 14 year old girl with attitude, rolling her eyes and rudely smirking
Any of these signs spell disaster. So with all of this knowledge and the frequency of how often we see these signs, you would think EVERYONE knew when to steer clear of him.
Not when you’re The Wanderer! Simply clueless! She always knows the exact wrong time to approach Little Boss and the wrong thing to say to him. She’ll walk in to bug him when he’s in mid-huff!! That should be a HUGE sign and would make you want to turn around and say to him “I’ll come back later!”. Nope, not her. She can’t see past her own hand to realize when it’s the wrong time to bring something up. I believe it comes from 2 things: 1) her inexperience with men and 2) her inability to read people because she’s unknowingly too focused on herself.
In mid-rant, The Wanderer walks into Little Boss’ office and his response was “Can I help you?”. Hello, HUGE red flag, and yet she STILL walked in! “I have a very useless question to ask you that will only further spiral your inappropriately unprofessional behavior, but I’m still going to ask it”, or at least that’s how I heard it!! She asks him a question that I could SWEAR she’s asked him a few times before. But that’s how she makes herself useful, she asks the same questions over and over again just to get folks to help her or do the work FOR her. But I digress!
So, I’m guessing Little Boss is hearing his own snotty attitude and tries to be a little more helpful and asks The Wanderer, “So, how are you today?”, but he doesn’t REALLY care, he’s just making conversation. He picked the wrong question and the wrong person to ask this of!! He hasn’t realized yet that she’s so needy, this question evokes her life freaking story!! She takes a big breath and says “Welllll, I’ve been really tired lately! I think it’s my diet, but I met with a nutritionist and he says I have to give up all glutens and sugar and that might help me out. But I went to Whole Foods and met with their nutritionist and……”. Hence, the life story. Meanwhile his eyes are glazing over and he’s praying for his phone to ring! But he’s so blunt, he just cuts her off with a “Sooo, did you have anymore questions? No? Okayyyyy, thanks a lot!”, and then dismisses her by turning back to his computer! This scenario happens almost EVERY time! The Wanderer doesn’t get that HE’S NOT ONE OF YOUR GIRLFRIENDS! You just say to Little Boss “I’m doing great” when he asks how you’ve been, then move on!
Who has a Wanderer in their office? A simple good morning turns in to a “Dear Diary…” moment??
July 21, 2009
thesassysecretary
A new character in our line-up. A pinch hitter I guess you will call him. He makes an appearance occasionally in our office. His name is
Graphics Guy, he takes care of all of our marketing. He makes our fliers, mass email advertising, sales pamphlets etc. We sub-contract him to do this, so he’s not actually in our office, hence the pinch hitter status.
I see Graphics Guy pretty often due to my proximity to Little Boss‘ office. He comes by to see Little Boss and go over new marketing stuff with him. Then he stays and he and Little Boss have extended conversations about sports, travel, the news, etc.
One day I mentioned to Diva and Number Cruncher that it’s really funny that Little Boss and Graphics Guy are like Best Friends Forever, or BFF as I should say! They both asked WHAT am I talking about??? I said “Oh, didn’t you know? Little Boss and Graphics Guy hang out outside of work!”. They both exclaimed “WHAT???!”. You see, Little Boss is old enough to be Graphics Guys’ dad, so it seemed like an odd friendship! I told them both “L.B. loves when G.G. comes to visit him, the business chatting is over with quickly, then they talk about their lives, their wives, etc. Little Boss even gets tickets to sporting events and takes Graphics Guy with him! They go to pro Soccer games, Baseball games, Football games, etc. They even have dinners together on the weekends, with their wives joining them! This was ALL news to Diva and Number Cruncher, and they’ve known Graphics Guy for years! They both thought what do THEY have in common?? And why would Graphics Guy, a nice funny guy want to hang out with Little Boss for?
Then I explained it to them. Graphics Guy gets the NICE Little Boss!! We get all the drama, bitterness, negative attitude and rage. But when Little Boss wants to put on the charm, he can be somewhat decent to hang out with. But he always puts his foot in his mouth and says something dumb, or makes an inappropriate remark. He’s old school and probably hasn’t attended any sensitivity training in his career!
It’s funny, when Little Boss is chatting with Graphics Guy, he’s almost NORMAL!!!! It’s like a glimpse of what he is outside of work. Like, when you run into someone you work with on the weekend and they are in shorts and a t-shirt, it’s weird!! But they’ll talk about their plans to hang out on the weekend or the next sporting event they are going to, like he’s a normal guy or something. And it’s not as though they live near each other and that’s one of the reasons they have struck up this friendship, they live on opposite sides of town from each other, so it’s not that either. But Little Boss gets almost giddy when he sits and chats with Graphics Guy, like he has a small “Man Crush” on him, hence he title of the blog! If any of you watch “The Office”, the boss Michael Scott has a Man Crush on Ryan the temp. This one is quit similar. It’s a side of Little Boss that we are not priveleged enough to get. He tells jokes, they talk sports, line-ups, coaches, this game, that game, etc. I’m pretty sports minded, a huge pro-football fan who can talk football with the best of them. I have on occassion tried to talk about the Sunday Football games with Little Boss, ONLY to be ignored, like “What the heck are you talking about??”, as if a woman couldn’t know anything about football! So, when they have their little gab sessions, I don’t interrupt his Man Crush time!!
Does anyone else out there have a boss that has a “Man Crush” on another guy? Don’t you think it’s unfair that the guy who waltzes into the office from time to time gets all the glory and the niceness from the boss??
July 21, 2009
thesassysecretary
He’s up, then he’s down, then he’s way up, then he’s down again, then back up since it’s close to quitting time. Working with
Little Boss is such an emotional roller coaster, and
everyone is strapped in for the ride.
The best ride of all? Captain Obvious’ Wild Ride! You turn on your computer, which might as well be a slot machine because who knows WHAT symbols are going to turn up! Will it boot up today? Is it MY turn to have my computer crash? Will I lose my files today?? Oh the joys of a seriously craptastic network system. And even though he has throngs of angry villagers outside of his office with pitchforks and torches, Captain Obvious might as well be Captain Oblivious!! He strolls, er more like saunters, around the office, with that stupid smirky, smarmy look on his face without a care in the world. I think even HE is starting to believe his own BS that he shovels everyday. The excuses he gives, the lies he weaves, that annoying little elf laugh he has, he’s by far one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met.
Captain Obvious’ idiosyncrasies wouldn’t be SO annoying if he actually did his freaking job. Goals: keep network working, make sure software & network security is up to date, and keep computers from crashing. These are fundamental and mandatory things for the head of an IT department, right? But when these core fundamentals are not met, it’s STILL not his fault. He blames IT Guru or the weather or someone is standing on the cord, whatever his excuses are. He’s like Teflon, blame and responsibility don’t stick to him. It’s ridiculous how many situations he’s used to BS’ing his way out of. He’ll speak computer jargon that goes WAY over Little Boss’ head (which truly ISN’T hard to do) and he’s bought himself another day or two. Captain Obvious has been working on the one computer program for a year and a half. Do you know how long ago it was supposed to be completed? ONE year ago! He’s been buying time ever since with ALL of his excuses, it’s insane. He’s used every excuse BUT the dog ate my homework to get out of this situation.
Do you know how many times a week Little Boss asks Captain Obvious “Soooo, what’s the status on that program? How much % wise is it complete? How much longer?” and he gets the SAME answer every single time “Oh, Little Boss, it’s almost complete! I’m working out the kinks in it and making trial runs, it’s almost ready to go!”. That was OVER a year ago??? When they have this conversation, I have to look around the room to see if the plants got taller because I feel like I’m stuck in the movie “Groundhog Day“!!!! How dumb do you have to be to bring a shovel to work everyday and shovel the BS that Captain Obvious gives you??? I just sit and shake my head and have a silent conversation with myself, “Really???? REALLY?????? Every single week we go through this little ridiculous update??? But when Little Boss asks me for some update or information, he’s suspicious and doesn’t believe ME?? But yet he buys this crap???”. Sometimes I have to leave the room because it truly is the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again an expecting different results is INSANITY!!!! And then later on Little Boss will call me into his office to complain about Captain Obvious. Why bother complaining about him if you aren’t going to DO anything about him??? They’ll have a HUGE fight in the office, and then the next day they are going to lunch together! He isn’t going to respect you if you two kiss and make up!!!! He KNOWS he can just continue get away with this!
Doesn’t every office have someone who gets away with everything?? How do they do it? Is it the brown nosing? Or is it because they laugh at all of their jokes? Is it by truly being a minion? It’s simply ridiculous. It’s that person who has to show the boss or bosses’ every single little accomplishment they do just to get attention. Then you will do 3 times as many accomplishments and since you fall under the category of “adult” and not “corporate minion” ALL of the awesome things you do everyday, EVERYDAY go unnoticed! It’s simply mind boggling.
Here’s a gem. We had a huge meeting awhile back and I had the food catered and really tried to have a nice spread of food for everyone to enjoy. It was an all day event so I was trying to keep everyone fed. At the end of the day, Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou was nice enough to tell Little Boss and myself “Thank you Sassy Secretary for bringing all of this food in for us. Little Boss, she does such a nice job of taking care of all of us and all of our needs! Don’t you agree?!” And what did that jacka** have to say to such a nice compliment? “*Pfffffft* Yeah, she even got up at 3am to make all those little tiny sandwiches on that platter over there! Thanks Betty Crocker!”. He’s so dumb, he’s dangerous. I literally wanted to smack him in the teeth I was so mad at him. Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou was taken aback by his idiotic comment and said “Uhhhh, that’s NOT what I was talking about. She takes care of all of us, I KNOW she didn’t make the sandwiches. NEVERMIND!” and walked away from him. But he didn’t care, he had that STUPID little smirk on his face as he had a secret little joke playing in his head that only he knew the punchline too.
Who’s boss out there is just as oblivious?? It just can’t be mine! I’d love to hear from you guys!
July 21, 2009
thesassysecretary
He huffs, and he puffs and he blows the office down!!!
Little Boss arrived this morning in a somewhat congenial mood with a Venti sized Starbucks coffee in his hand. He means business when he comes in with the BIG Starbucks cup!
He was decent for about 1 hour, exactly. He’s still nipping at Captain Obvious after all of their bickering yesterday, L.B. is biting at everything he tells Captain Obvious. So Captain Obvious retreats to his office with his tail between his legs and closes his door. Soon after that, Little Boss is in need of Captain Obvious’ help so he stomps over to C.O.’s office. Much to his dismay, Captain Obvious is on his cell phone, leaning back in his chair laughing with whomever he was chatting with. This didn’t go over very well.
So Little Boss gives it a few more minutes and tries again, coming over to Captain Obvious’ office. STILL on his cell phone. Little Boss decides to take a moment to use the restroom and go have a smoke. Around 15 minutes later he comes back in only to see that Captain Obvious is STILL on his cell phone with the door closed.
Then the email comes:
“I walk around the office and see cell phones on desks, and a few of you using your phones a lot. I understand you need to answer your cell phones to speak with family members, spouses, children, whatever. None of you need these phones out to conduct work business. I’d prefer if the phones were either left in your purse or in your desk. Excessive phone use isn’t necessary“.
Ohhhh, this from the guy who’s wife calls him SEVERAL times a day on the cell phone. NOT on his private office line. Same with Captain Obvious, his stay-at-home wife calls him CONSTANTLY. She goes on shopping sprees or “bargain hunting trips” as she calls them, finds an item she thinks is a good deal, then takes a picture of it and sends it to his phone. I know this because I sit near him and he’s so “proud” of her purchases, he shows me the pics she sends to him. Barf. BUT back to the issue at hand
So quite a few get the email and come to talk to me and few feel a need to hide their phones. I tell them ladies, he’s not singling YOU out, it’s Captain Obvious. See the pattern?? Little Boss goes by Captain Obvious once, twice, three times an sees him on his cell. Little Boss immediately sits down at his desk, and fires off this email. He’s EXTREMELY reactive. He doesn’t send out all users email from something that happened the day before, or hours before or last week. It’s ALWAYS reactive and spur of the moment. He pops off, gets it off his chest, and moves on. Leaving everyone in his path.
While Little Boss on a roll, he decides to tell us all as well that he’s sees a lot of us on the internet and if it’s not business related, we need to get off of the net. First of all, if he sees us on the net, it’s business related. Not to say that we don’t get on the net for personal reasons, but when he walks up and down the halls, he gives himself away that he’s coming because he’s so noisy! So we minimize the personal stuff and leave the business internet stuff up on the screen! He jingles his change in his pockets, he talks very loudly, he walks really hard and we can hear his footsteps. We ALL know this. So just because HE sees us on the net, doesn’t mean it isn’t work related!!! But again, he’s extremely reactive.
Then lunchtime rolls around and Little Boss strolls into the kitchen for a fork and see 7 of us eating lunch in the breakroom. That’s when the Mr. Hyde personality kicked in! Prince Charming wants to know what we are all eating for lunch, it all looks good, smells good. Gives us all a smile and walks out. We all look at each other simply baffled at his split personality!!!!! Crystal Hippie brings up a very good point, “If he sees one person misbehaving and constantly on the cell phone, why can’t he just deal with that one person, instead of sending hate male out to us as if we are students, and not adult employees??”. Then Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou says “You KNOW he never directly disciplines Captain Obvious!! He gets away with everything!!! Always has!”. Very true!
Later in the day, I’m in the middle of like 6 different tasks, and Captain Obvious’ crap network system freezes on me and my computer shuts down! Great, that’s some fine handiwork. So I have to shut off the computer and try to turn it back on again. When it finally comes back up, I’m locked out of my computer and need an administrator’s help. I quickly inform Captain Obvious that my computer is frozen and need him to reset my log in. How long does it take him to get around to it and get it running again? 1 hour. He has to “refresh” the system or some BS like that and finally an hour later it was up again. Aargh. I have work to do! And by the time the computer came back up, it was 10 minutes until quitting time. Thanks for nothing Captain Obvious!
How quickly does YOUR IT department get to your system issues??
July 21, 2009
thesassysecretary
A new character in our line-up. A pinch hitter I guess you will call him. He makes an appearance occasionally in our office. His name is
Graphics Guy, he takes care of all of our marketing. He makes our fliers, mass email advertising, sales pamphlets etc. We sub-contract him to do this, so he’s not actually in our office, hence the pinch hitter status.
I see Graphics Guy pretty often due to my proximity to Little Boss‘ office. He comes by to see Little Boss and go over new marketing stuff with him. Then he stays and he and Little Boss have extended conversations about sports, travel, the news, etc.
One day I mentioned to Diva and Number Cruncher that it’s really funny that Little Boss and Graphics Guy are like Best Friends Forever, or BFF as I should say! They both asked WHAT am I talking about??? I said “Oh, didn’t you know? Little Boss and Graphics Guy hang out outside of work!”. They both exclaimed “WHAT???!”. You see, Little Boss is old enough to be Graphics Guys’ dad, so it seemed like an odd friendship! I told them both “L.B. loves when G.G. comes to visit him, the business chatting is over with quickly, then they talk about their lives, their wives, etc. Little Boss even gets tickets to sporting events and takes Graphics Guy with him! They go to pro Soccer games, Baseball games, Football games, etc. They even have dinners together on the weekends, with their wives joining them! This was ALL news to Diva and Number Cruncher, and they’ve known Graphics Guy for years! They both thought what do THEY have in common?? And why would Graphics Guy, a nice funny guy want to hang out with Little Boss for?
Then I explained it to them. Graphics Guy gets the NICE Little Boss!! We get all the drama, bitterness, negative attitude and rage. But when Little Boss wants to put on the charm, he can be somewhat decent to hang out with. But he always puts his foot in his mouth and says something dumb, or makes an inappropriate remark. He’s old school and probably hasn’t attended any sensitivity training in his career!
It’s funny, when Little Boss is chatting with Graphics Guy, he’s almost NORMAL!!!! It’s like a glimpse of what he is outside of work. Like, when you run into someone you work with on the weekend and they are in shorts and a t-shirt, it’s weird!! But they’ll talk about their plans to hang out on the weekend or the next sporting event they are going to, like he’s a normal guy or something. And it’s not as though they live near each other and that’s one of the reasons they have struck up this friendship, they live on opposite sides of town from each other, so it’s not that either. But Little Boss gets almost giddy when he sits and chats with Graphics Guy, like he has a small “Man Crush” on him, hence he title of the blog! If any of you watch “The Office”, the boss Michael Scott has a Man Crush on Ryan the temp. This one is quit similar. It’s a side of Little Boss that we are not priveleged enough to get. He tells jokes, they talk sports, line-ups, coaches, this game, that game, etc. I’m pretty sports minded, a huge pro-football fan who can talk football with the best of them. I have on occassion tried to talk about the Sunday Football games with Little Boss, ONLY to be ignored, like “What the heck are you talking about??”, as if a woman couldn’t know anything about football! So, when they have their little gab sessions, I don’t interrupt his Man Crush time!!
Does anyone else out there have a boss that has a “Man Crush” on another guy? Don’t you think it’s unfair that the guy who waltzes into the office from time to time gets all the glory and the niceness from the boss??
July 19, 2009
thesassysecretary
He’s up, then he’s down, then he’s way up, then he’s down again, then back up since it’s close to quitting time. Working with Little Boss is such an emotional roller coaster, and everyone is strapped in for the ride.
The best ride of all? Captain Obvious’ Wild Ride! You turn on your computer, which might as well be a slot machine because who knows WHAT symbols are going to turn up! Will it boot up today? Is it MY turn to have my computer crash? Will I lose my files today?? Oh the joys of a seriously craptastic network system. And even though he has throngs of angry villagers outside of his office with pitchforks and torches, Captain Obvious might as well be Captain Oblivious!! He strolls, er more like saunters, around the office, with that stupid smirky, smarmy look on his face without a care in the world. I think even HE is starting to believe his own BS that he shovels everyday. The excuses he gives, the lies he weaves, that annoying little elf laugh he has, he’s by far one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met.
Captain Obvious’ idiosyncrasies wouldn’t be SO annoying if he actually did his freaking job. Goals: keep network working, make sure software & network security is up to date, and keep computers from crashing. These are fundamental and mandatory things for the head of an IT department, right? But when these core fundamentals are not met, it’s STILL not his fault. He blames IT Guru or the weather or someone is standing on the cord, whatever his excuses are. He’s like Teflon, blame and responsibility don’t stick to him. It’s ridiculous how many situations he’s used to BS’ing his way out of. He’ll speak computer jargon that goes WAY over Little Boss’ head (which truly ISN’T hard to do) and he’s bought himself another day or two. Captain Obvious has been working on the one computer program for a year and a half. Do you know how long ago it was supposed to be completed? ONE year ago! He’s been buying time ever since with ALL of his excuses, it’s insane. He’s used every excuse BUT the dog ate my homework to get out of this situation.
Do you know how many times a week Little Boss asks Captain Obvious “Soooo, what’s the status on that program? How much % wise is it complete? How much longer?” and he gets the SAME answer every single time “Oh, Little Boss, it’s almost complete! I’m working out the kinks in it and making trial runs, it’s almost ready to go!”. That was OVER a year ago??? When they have this conversation, I have to look around the room to see if the plants got taller because I feel like I’m stuck in the movie “Groundhog Day“!!!! How dumb do you have to be to bring a shovel to work everyday and shovel the BS that Captain Obvious gives you??? I just sit and shake my head and have a silent conversation with myself, “Really???? REALLY?????? Every single week we go through this little ridiculous update??? But when Little Boss asks me for some update or information, he’s suspicious and doesn’t believe ME?? But yet he buys this crap???”. Sometimes I have to leave the room because it truly is the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again an expecting different results is INSANITY!!!! And then later on Little Boss will call me into his office to complain about Captain Obvious. Why bother complaining about him if you aren’t going to DO anything about him??? They’ll have a HUGE fight in the office, and then the next day they are going to lunch together! He isn’t going to respect you if you two kiss and make up!!!! He KNOWS he can just continue get away with this!
Doesn’t every office have someone who gets away with everything?? How do they do it? Is it the brown nosing? Or is it because they laugh at all of their jokes? Is it by truly being a minion? It’s simply ridiculous. It’s that person who has to show the boss or bosses’ every single little accomplishment they do just to get attention. Then you will do 3 times as many accomplishments and since you fall under the category of “adult” and not “corporate minion” ALL of the awesome things you do everyday, EVERYDAY go unnoticed! It’s simply mind boggling.
Here’s a gem. We had a huge meeting awhile back and I had the food catered and really tried to have a nice spread of food for everyone to enjoy. It was an all day event so I was trying to keep everyone fed. At the end of the day, Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou was nice enough to tell Little Boss and myself “Thank you Sassy Secretary for bringing all of this food in for us. Little Boss, she does such a nice job of taking care of all of us and all of our needs! Don’t you agree?!” And what did that jacka** have to say to such a nice compliment? “*Pfffffft* Yeah, she even got up at 3am to make all those little tiny sandwiches on that platter over there! Thanks Betty Crocker!”. He’s so dumb, he’s dangerous. I literally wanted to smack him in the teeth I was so mad at him. Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou was taken aback by his idiotic comment and said “Uhhhh, that’s NOT what I was talking about. She takes care of all of us, I KNOW she didn’t make the sandwiches. NEVERMIND!” and walked away from him. But he didn’t care, he had that STUPID little smirk on his face as he had a secret little joke playing in his head that only he knew the punchline too.
Who’s boss out there is just as oblivious?? It just can’t be mine! I’d love to hear from you guys!
July 18, 2009
thesassysecretary
He huffs, and he puffs and he blows the office down!!!
Little Boss arrived this morning in a somewhat congenial mood with a Venti sized Starbucks coffee in his hand. He means business when he comes in with the BIG Starbucks.
He was decent for about 1 hour, exactly. He’s still nipping at Captain Obvious after all of their bickering yesterday, L.B. is biting at everything he tells Captain Obvious. So Captain Obvious retreats to his office with his tail between his legs and closes his door. Soon after that, Little Boss is in need of Captain Obvious’ help so he stomps over to C.O.’s office. Much to his dismay, Captain Obvious is on his cell phone, leaning back in his chair laughing with whomever he was chatting with. This didn’t go over very well.
So Little Boss gives it a few more minutes and tries again, coming over to Captain Obvious’ office. STILL on his cell phone. Little Boss decides to take a moment to use the restroom and go have a smoke. Around 15 minutes later he comes back in only to see that Captain Obvious is STILL on his cell phone with the door closed.
Then the email comes:
“I walk around the office and see cell phones on desks, and a few of you using your phones a lot. I understand you need to answer your cell phones to speak with family members, spouses, children, whatever. None of you need these phones out to conduct work business. I’d prefer if the phones were either left in your purse or in your desk. Excessive phone use isn’t necessary“.
Ohhhh, this from the guy who’s wife calls him SEVERAL times a day on the cell phone. NOT on his private office line. Same with Captain Obvious, his stay-at-home wife calls him CONSTANTLY. She goes on shopping sprees or “bargain hunting trips” as she calls them, finds an item she thinks is a good deal, then takes a picture of it and sends it to his phone. I know this because I sit near him and he’s so “proud” of her purchases, he shows me the pics she sends to him. Barf. BUT back to the issue at hand
So quite a few get the email and come to talk to me and few feel a need to hide their phones. I tell them ladies, he’s not singling YOU out, it’s Captain Obvious. See the pattern?? Little Boss goes by Captain Obvious once, twice, three times an sees him on his cell. Little Boss immediately sits down at his desk, and fires off this email. He’s EXTREMELY reactive. He doesn’t send out all users email from something that happened the day before, or hours before or last week. It’s ALWAYS reactive and spur of the moment. He pops off, gets it off his chest, and moves on. Leaving everyone in his path.
While Little Boss on a roll, he decides to tell us all as well that he’s sees a lot of us on the internet and if it’s not business related, we need to get off of the net. First of all, if he sees us on the net, it’s business related. Not to say that we don’t get on the net for personal reasons, but when he walks up and down the halls, he gives himself away that he’s coming because he’s so noisy! So we minimize the personal stuff and leave the business internet stuff up on the screen! He jingles his change in his pockets, he talks very loudly, he walks really hard and we can hear his footsteps. We ALL know this. So just because HE sees us on the net, doesn’t mean it isn’t work related!!! But again, he’s extremely reactive.
Then lunchtime rolls around and Little Boss strolls into the kitchen for a fork and see 7 of us eating lunch in the breakroom. That’s when the Mr. Hyde personality kicked in! Prince Charming wants to know what we are all eating for lunch, it all looks good, smells good. Gives us all a smile and walks out. We all look at each other simply baffled at his split personality!!!!! Crystal Hippie brings up a very good point, “If he sees one person misbehaving and constantly on the cell phone, why can’t he just deal with that one person, instead of sending hate male out to us as if we are students, and not adult employees??”. Then Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou says “You KNOW he never directly disciplines Captain Obvious!! He gets away with everything!!! Always has!”. Very true!
Later in the day, I’m in the middle of like 6 different tasks, and Captain Obvious’ crap network system freezes on me and my computer shuts down! Great, that’s some fine handiwork. So I have to shut off the computer and try to turn it back on again. When it finally comes back up, I’m locked out of my computer and need an administrator’s help. I quickly inform Captain Obvious that my computer is frozen and need him to reset my log in. How long does it take him to get around to it and get it running again? 1 hour. He has to “refresh” the system or some BS like that and finally an hour later it was up again. Aargh. I have work to do! And by the time the computer came back up, it was 10 minutes until quitting time. Thanks for nothing Captain Obvious!
How quickly does YOUR IT department get to your system issues??
July 17, 2009
thesassysecretary
