And you thought that TPS reports were bad

The following has been paraphrased based on a true conversation, except for what I made up.

From: Derperson & Co. HR Department
To: All Employees

We here at Derperson & Co. HR are fully committed to bringing you the best work place experience possible. To that end, the following policy changes have been implemented so that no one will have to be bothered by anything ever again:

1) If you have a complaint against someone for anything, no matter how small, make sure to communicate this anonymously with few details and no specifics, preferably in the form of a note slid under a locked office door. We all need some excitement and mystery in our lives after all.

2) Report everything. No matter whether or not a statement, action, or thought was communicated directly to you, if you find it the slightest bit offensive, best to not take chances and report it immediately following the guidelines of Rule #1. To ensure your complaint is the top priority, include the phrase 'sexual innuendo' in your note; you'll get the quickest action* that way.

3) If you feel that the HR department is not moving swiftly enough for your liking or has closed the file in a non-satisfactory manner to you, rewrite your complaint and send it to the corporate ethics hotline again anonymously and with few details. Feel free to add anything additional but make sure to not include any specifics. It's a good idea to invoke the 'unwanted physical contact' but refrain from mentioning whether your were the recipient of the contact or not. Emphasize that hugging was involved and that it bordered on an embrace. This will ensure that all other activities lose urgency in light of this fact.

4) Employees will now be required to wear opaque bubble-wrap suits to work to eliminate the possibility of exposed body parts that could offend someone with the added bonus of improving our safety record. Remember: you can't get injured or be seen if there's nothing to see. Report any violations in the manner as described above.

With your help we can make Derperson & Co. an even better place to work, free of any interaction with fellow coworkers at all. As everyone knows, HR has nothing better to do with their time than investigate vague complaints for weeks on end and doesn't really do anything the rest of the time anyway.

Sincerely,

The HR Department

*I guess we have to report ourselves now.

Why magnums of wine were invented

Oh! Hey there. So, it's been a while since I've gone off on a work-related rant but after the past few weeks, I feel pretty entitled. Some of it may be boring and techno-y but it mostly boils down to people are stupid and woe is me.

It's been no secret that I'm not the biggest fan of my current position but earlier this year I found out that if I want to stay in Sensory (oh goody) then the head of the NQAL sensory group will be retiring in roughly 2 years and logically speaking, I'm the only one in house that has any responsibilities remotely close to what she does so I put my 2-year plan into action. Mostly this consisted of asking what I need to know and trying to schedule time with my boss to approve the trainings. (Spoiler alert: hasn't happened yet.) Okay, I can deal with two more years of this; things are supposed to improve, stuffs are being moved around, Bob's yer uncle. Then several weeks ago, a friend in the group that I left 10 years ago called me up to let me know she had gotten a new position and hers would be vacant and I should totally apply, she had already mentioned me to the lab manager. Wowzers! That's what I wanted more than anything, to go back there but always felt that too much time had passed. However, the way the job post was written, I qualified on all counts. Sweet! Eternal damnation of the sensory kind was demoted to Plan B. Sent in the bid, got the first interview, felt good about that, got the second interview, was feeling pretty good about that and then....Screech. Sorry. A two-grade jump is too much. We'd love to have you back but only at a lower grade and that's not what we're recruiting for but keep in touch. TTYL. Well fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck. Plan B has been called up to Plan A. Again. (It's okay, I'm still bummed but I've got my name back out there and that's half the battle blah blah blah.)

But! Knowing that's off the table right now (they'll rue the day!) meant that I could refocus on building the base of skills and training that I'll need to become Super Sensory Scientist - management of the shelf life report has found a new home with the materials management group (shockingly, where it should have resided all along), time freed up to really get the descriptive trainings going, still trying to get a meeting with my manager, we're making progress when...Blammo! The maelstrom of stupid has taken up residence in the plant and my office is ground zero.

First was several massive raw material rejections because appearance requirements such as 'Red' and 'Dark Red' were very confusing to our suppliers and I was backed on these rejections completely until the powers that be decided we really needed the material to make stuff and so, maybe our requirements need to be loosened to 'tan with a reddish tint' and 'orange is fine too'. I've stopped responding to emails and phone calls over this because they are on their own now if they want to use this stuff that doesn't meet the specifications that they specifically specified.

Next the person who is now taking on the responsibility of running and researching the shelf life report has just gone out for two weeks on paternity leave. (Interestingly, just last month my company started to grant 1 week of paternity leave. We still don't get actual maternity leave, you go on short term disability for that. While good on them for stepping into the 20th century for the guys, for the ladies who are actually HAVING THE BABIES, sorry, We award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.) While on one hand, yay! babies!, this means that the report and research revert back to me while he is out because god forbid they have a backup to research materials in materials management along with a different report to block and test 174 products ASAP NBD. (Ha. Haaaaaaa. No.) and assorted evaluations, investigations, panels, and bullshit for the team of Me, Myself, and I.

But it's all good. I just sucked down a giant Diet Coke and I've got a magnum of Chardonnay plus unlimited ice cubes at home. I do apologize though to everyone on the primary ballot; Im'ma most likely take my annoyance out on y'all later. 'Murica! Fuck yeah!

Untethered

Also can be filed under: Are women EVER happy?

One of my primary tasks at work has been to run a certain report, research items on said report, sample items, test items and determine a disposition (can they be used or not). The testing and disposition-making are the things I should be doing; the running of the report through research is not; that belongs with our scheduling group. But for the past seven years I've been doing it all and have groused about it not being Quality's place to do the upfront work, just the evaluations. Fortunately (?) my boss agrees with me that too much of my time is taken up by doing the work another department should be doing thus preventing my from doing the real role of my job - developing our sensory evaluation capabilities and monitoring taste quality. He agrees so much so that he spearheaded a project/demand to move the upfront piece back where it belongs. Fine, I'm on board with this plan so I showed the scheduling group how to run the report, the decision-making processes I used in deciding what to sample and then for over a month now, nothing. So glad I put myself behind in my work to do that. That worked out splendidly.

Earlier this week, my boss informed me in our daily staff meeting that beginning next week, the scheduling group would be taking over responsibility for running the report and doing the research on the items. I was taken aback with how casually it was just dropped in the conversation, almost like an afterthought but okay, it's fine, this is what we've been working towards. Tally ho and onwards and all that. Well today when I ran the base reports for the *final* time, I noticed that they have already been run. I don't know if it was them practicing or 'going live' early but I found myself unaccountably lost. So much of my work life has been centered around this report that when it disappeared without warning, I struggled to focus myself. That which gave structure to my days, that I clung to for a sense of purpose, gone, like a snowflake against the windshield.

And now, I wait. Wait for a list to be provided to me to sample and test and check off. Remain on high alert at all times to respond to the whims of another department that I no longer have any control over. My work structure will change, how I organize my day will change and I didn't have time to plan this out. There will be a lot of floundering in the coming weeks, adjusting to the new world order. It's for the best. I firmly believe it and I'll be able to add real value to my department now. I'll be able to institute the sustainable training programs I've been wanting to for so long to develop our staff's capabilities so customers and the business take us seriously as a partner. I get all that and I welcome the opportunity to make it all happen.

But I really would have liked the chance to say goodbye.

Revenge of the Giant Space Chicken

I fully cop to being a creature of habit. I like my routines, being able to plan my workday to manage the load for a week (weekends are much more free-flowing and as long as there is coffee involved, I don't worry about much). Missing the mark on even one day sends my entire week spiraling out of control as there is no one to pick up the slack but me so I have to work twice as hard to keep up which puts me in a grumpy mood which means Dylan is about to have an exceptionally bad evening. (We did promise to share everything in our marriage vows, I'm just not sure he understood what he was signing up for.) But a few frantic days and things settle back to normalcy and it's safe to approach me without holding out a giant glass of wine as a peace offering. This week though. Ho, ho, HO!

Lemme just put it out there: God and Loki? The same person. There is no other possible explanation for the Giant Space Chicken that dropped the Egg of Fail on my head. Shall we? Let's.

Monday started with the command performance at he annual Health and Safety day for the featured speaker. Now, the guy they got this year was interesting, he was in the unit that Hollywood made the movie 'Black Hawk Down' about. He shared his story, focusing on the themes of duty, teamwork, and looking out for one another always. Good speaker, interesting topic, awful time. He spoke from 1-3 pm. In a place that we had to leave work to travel to. So this meant that I wasn't able to get any of my evaluations done on Monday afternoon, typically a workhorse of a day. I generally prefer to do my evaluations in the afternoon when the lab is empty as the materials I have to test are rather nasty and we perform many sensitive screenings throughout the day that my materials would interfere with. (This is called me being a team player. Take note. It doesn't happen often.) Okay, fine. Monday is lost.

Tuesday all I had in the afternoon was one measly panel. One product. In and out. Easy peasy. Except that I got called out for having the giant box with my new printer on the floor of my office because GIANT ASS PRINTER BOX so I needed to get that set up and off the floor. Everything went fine until I couldn't install the software for the printer to actually work as only our IT group can do that. That involved contacting IT, making the help request, waiting for help, waiting for the gabazillion thingamabobs to load and testing which ate up the time used for report running since they had to take control of my computer to load the damn stuff meaning the morning work got pushed to the afternoon and just like *that* Tuesday went *poof*.

At this point I started to panic as I knew Wednesday would be a lost cause due to a business update meeting where we listened to a bunch of boring business updates and struggled to stay awake lest we be taken to task for not caring about anything, you selfish whore. Got the bare minimum done, weeping for my vanishing sanity knowing that Thursday was going to suck mightily because...

Oh HAI two hour meeting at the end of the afternoon. This one I didn't mind so much as it's for a good thing I'm not willing to jinx by talking about it yet (and thereby just torpedoed everything. Good job me!) In an act of desperate prioritization, slammed through the most pressing evaluations saving the bulk for today....

And half the department is out on vacation meaning I'm doing command screenings because THERE IS NO ONE ELSE AROUND TO DO SO. Thank goodness tomorrow is Saturday so I can finally get some work done in peace.

Wait. What?

And then there were four...

Three years ago my division went through a staff reduction of 10% based on faulty forecasting.  Most of the other departments affected lost non-exempt staff and were able to hire back replacements once it became clear that the forecast wasn't as dire as predicted.  All except my department which lost two exempt employees...that were never replaced.  Those lack of trained professional staff in those roles wasn't immediately felt (except by me as one of my best friends was caught in the cross-hairs) but as time went on it became clear that the strain of taking on more work was getting to people.  We were constantly told that we were overstaffed and overhead, a drain on resources.  We brought nothing to the company (unless you count keeping those in charge out of jail but that tends to be overlooked in day to day operations) and the survivors should feel lucky that we still had jobs.  All in all, a nice atmosphere, full of happiness and light and unicorns shitting rainbows.

The year after the layoffs, we lost two more professional staff, one of whom was replaced by another non-exempt hire.  So they could say that we were getting *some* headcount back but no leaders, no one to help shoulder the decision-making load.  Soon the responsibility for the entire lab, three shifts worth of technicians fell to one person with me assisting in the afternoons.  We continued on in this precarious shifting house of cards for sixteen months until our department head announced earlier this year that she was leaving.  That left us with no manager, no lab manager, no chemist and one lab supervisor.  A beacon of light shone in the darkness however, we hired a lab manager and we all started breathing again.

She quit after a week.

Two days ago, another professional member of our decimated staff was terminated, leaving us with four; two of whom have little direct interaction with the technicians.  To say that we are stressed out and stretched beyond our breaking points is putting it extremely mildly.

It's like our very own business Hunger Games but in this contest, there are no sponsors or mentors.  No silver parachutes of relief; no trumpets signaling a victor.  Just a gaping void awaiting a single false step.

Anyone hiring?

Really? Just...really?

Well.  Things had been looking up at work for a brief, shining moment when a moment is defined as a week.  A new lab manager started last week filling a void in staffing that had reached the 18-month point (and filling with rage a co-worker but it can't be helped if she doesn't take her meds).  Normalcy would return! Roles would be clarified! Bluebirds would sing and unicorns would poop rainbows and jelly beans! Nothing can stop us now!

Until the rumor mill started spinning that the new lab manager, in fact, became the old lab manager due to her declaration Friday afternoon that this place was old and dirty and she quit, good day sir.

*Allow me a moment, I'm still trying to get my head around this one.*

As is with most times, the rumor mill was correct.  I'm baffled by her behavior as I'm the one who showed her the plant and gave her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about this place.  In fact, I was the truthiest* I could be.  Coated no sugar, white washed no walls, gave it to her straight and she accepted the job.  Yes, this place is old and dirty and smells (and that's just the people ba dum DUM) but that's kind of our role: to make food flavorings.  Anyway, I still haven't finished processing THAT betrayal as I'm mostly hung up on how management decided to handle this.  Which is to say NOT AT ALL.

The folks on the shop floor gossip worse than the biddies in Leisure World.  This...is no secret.  So my understanding is that this went down Friday afternoon (I was off work...recovering), the whispers started almost immediately and by this morning no fewer than THREE production leaders accosted our Process Quality Manager in his office asking, 'Is it true?!?'  (Note if you will what is missing from this tale: any official communication.  This is important.) 

To recap so far: Friday = quit.  Today = Tuesday.  And we have daily department and plant meetings to share this type of information.  I finally asked the poor Process Quality Manager if it was true and didn't anyone think that by not making an official communication, we were kind of solidifying the impression of the technicians that there is no communication happening pretty much anywhere in this plant? And is Exhibit A as to why we scored so poorly on the voice of the employee survey last year?  Not to mention that the lab techs would be reporting to the lab manager and don't you think that they should know that their new boss left?

*Stops, rubs temples, breathes deeply*

I get it; the leadership team was blindsided and hurt by this.  But, it wasn't personal.  It just wasn't a good fit for her so she did what she needed to do for herself.  I'm okay with this.  What I'm not okay with is them knowing, doing/saying nothing and simply allowing the whispers to circulate unchecked.  Why should the technicians look to any of us for leadership anymore if we don't share important things like this with them. The last shred of our credibility as leaders has been torn free from dilapidated structure which held it aloft by the winds of whispers.  It's a snapshot of a larger systemic issue here; gossip and rumors take the place of real communication.  The gulf widens and the mistrust which fills it grows ever deeper.  I despair of any real change taking place, too often have we been played for fools.

I wonder if it's too late to pursue that football career after all.

*Please don't sue me Stephen Colbert!

A Day In the Life

As Mufasa told Simba in 'The Lion King', '...we all exist in a delicate balance....' That right there is my work life in a nutshell.  It's a very fine, delicate balance, calibrated practically to the nanosecond and the smallest thing that has not been accounted for in the schedule throws thing into such a disarray that my mental organization can best be described by the water spout-cow-tornado scene from 'Twister'. When the cows start flying, you know that things are bad. (We won't even discuss the state of my office.  I'm surprised the Fire Marshal hasn't shut me down yet.) (That may be a thinly veiled plea for help but I'll never tell.) (Parenthetical abuses ahoy!)

What was before an uneasy dance with potential disaster has morphed full on to a daily WWE RAW or Thunderdome adventure of mind- and taste bud-boggling proportions. To wit:

7:15 - 7:30 AM: Attempt to leave house for the day with preschooler, toddler, accompanying book bags, lunches, jackets, toys, books, video games etc. Oh who am I kidding; if we make it out the door before 7:25 I count it as a major victory.

7:55 AM: Arrive at school.  Drop Noah off at his classroom, beg Noelle to go potty as she hasn't gone potty yet this morning OMGWTFBBQ, talk him out of the color game, tell Noelle two to three times to put the toys away FORTHELUVAGOD. Try to remove Noah from leg; rue leaving WD-40 at home.  Finally escape, play rousing game of hide-and-seek with Noelle in her classroom because 'find me' games are exactly what Mommy wants to play when she is running late.

8:05 - 8:15 AM: Leave school for work; hope that I can make the left turn in under five minutes.

8:10 - 8:20 AM: Arrive at work, go to trailer (klassy!) to taste and gather technical follow-ups.

8:30 AM: Make it to desk, see voicemail light on, curse creatively, scan email for crises....oh look, three so far today.  Wunderbar.  Debate getting coffee before....

8:45 AM: Daily stand-up Quality meeting.  No coffee.

9:00 AM: Daily Plant Meeting.  Still no coffee, presenter's head resembling giant coffee cup and/or danish.  Start muttering to self and rocking. Try not to snort at mind-blowing fuck-ups. Settle for gentle, disbelieving head shake.

9:30 AM: GET COFFEE

9:32 AM: Run various reports, reply to emails, take samples to R&D as I'm really just a glorified gofer, get into groove until...

10:00 AM: Staff training.  Do not refill coffee

10:15 AM: Seriously regret not refilling coffee

10:30 AM: COFFEE *weeps for relief*

10:32 AM - 12:30 PM: pull (more) samples, reject things, curse online radio station for not playing Top 40 and being forced to endure classic rock.

12:30 - 1:00 PM: Get the hell out of the building. Deep, cleansing breaths. Walk rapidly around the park alternately composing witty and insightful blog posts and pointed, insightful responses to general idiocies encountered.

1:00 - 1:30 PM: Eat lunch, escape reality catching up on blog reading.  Try not to snarf beverage. Fail miserably.

1:30 - 2:00 PM: Assemble projects for afternoon, get started on set ups until...Crap!

2:00 PM: Second shift team meeting

2:30 PM: Begin project work, temperature of trailer approaches that of a sauna thereby ensuring the ultimate aromatic experience for my children in three hours.

4:30 PM: Reenter office, scatter technicians with smell, attempt to do paperwork.  Thwarted. Repeatedly.

5:00 PM: Leave office, get kids, leave smelly trail of destruction in my wake.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

For extra joy on Fridays, I pencil in at least two crises starting at 3:15.  It's our own special brand of torture.

Thankfully God invented weekends for catching up.