Professional Darwinism: Update to OP on p.74

[White Dragon]

Heh. I may know more than a few young Engineers and not one of them would dare track mud into the office.
Not only do we have our own Dragon, we have big boss, who let it  be known that mops/vacuums would be in the future of anyone tracking in mud.

Unfortunately for us, the tech did not have to go past the front desk to get up to my area. I saw him go by my desk, but I didn't see his feet. 

[ladyknight1]

This is why DH, a locksmith, keeps a full change of clothing, broom, dustpan, and a vacuum in his truck!

[andi]

That reminds me of the furniture guys who delivered to us - they had the cutest blue booties put over their shoes

[Lauds]

It's kind of willfull misinformation, though.  It would be easy enough for her to check with you that her info was correct, but she couldn't be bothered.  I'd be horribly irritated with that kind of behavior.

She also must have had some idea that the information she gave might be wrong, otherwise she wouldn't have checked she was right.

[ladyknight1]

Probably right, my boss and her boss get back tomorrow and I will be discussing this with my boss and letting it go. We have had major issues since she started working for us with this one up kind of behavior.

[jedikaiti]

You bring the updates, I'll bring the popcorn.

[Minmom3]

I'll bake brownies...

[ladyknight1]

Until something drastic occurs, such as misinformation leading to a student complaint, nothing will be done. The current administration just adore S, and don't want to upset the current working pattern.

We have just hired a new uber boss, so things may change after he starts.

[Piratelvr1121]

9) In going back and forth to his car, he walked *through* the not-yet-landscaped-and-still-very-muddy area in front of the building. (Saved about 15 feet of walking!) There is mud on our stairs, the floor in front of my desk, in our carpets and all over the kitchen. He clearly used one of the chairs, because there was gobs of mud all over the lower rungs of the chair.

Maybe I'm just lucky that almost every place I ever worked had a "dragon" in the front office.  She usually has a title like "office manager" or "big boss's secretary."  She may not be able to actually breathe fire, but her stern looks can freeze miscreants in their tracks.

One engineering office also had surveyors.  Surveyors are famous (infamous?) for getting muddy in the field and tracking it through the office.  I saw the Office Dragon overseeing a couple young surveyors on their hands and knees cleaning up every bit of the mud they tracked through the office.

In another office, a different Office Dragon found the guilty party by following the muddy footprints.  Not even freshly graduated engineers, who think they know everything, dare defy the Office Dragon.

And this is why my DH, who is a surveyor, always always always has an extra pair of shoes in the truck that are NOT to be worn in the field. You do not mess with the office ladies. Ever. 

My DH, who does appliance repair, has boot covers so that he won't track mud into people's homes when he comes to service their washer/dryer/fridge, what have you. 

[Cami]

My office is a very small part of a large university. We have satellite campuses around our area, and some of the offices at those campuses are very small, with only one or two full time staff.

One of the employees at my office (S) used to work at one of those small offices. As S says herself, it was a one woman show. She did everything, even things that are beyond the scope of her position. S has demonstrated that she still wants to do many things, such as answering questions, even when she: a, does not have access to the information required; and b, does not have the answers the student is seeking. I was in my office all day yesterday, except for one hour for lunch. S came and asked me to verify that she gave the correct information to the student that called about something that I or my boss would usually handle. Turns out that S gave the entirely wrong answer, and has been wrong about that very important piece of information since she began working at the university. When I gently corrected her about VIP information, she didn't believe me. Turns out that I was here during that conversation, but S was bored and wanted to talk to the student. 

While it is not intentional misinformation, I believe that S committed PD in not checking her facts, taking a message or transferring the call to the pertinent staff member, me.

Gee, almost wonder if S works at a university to which my daughter has been admitted but has been given misinformation that is affecting her ability to decide whether the university is a good fit for her.  She's gotten so discouraged by how hard it has been to get accurate information that she's now doubting whether this university is worth the extra expense.

[SoCalVal]

I know what it means in this context, but I keep thinking "Designated Hitter."

Rob

I read Rob's post as "Designated Hitler".  Definitely a presbyopia moment.

That's how I first read it, too; had to read it again since I was sure that's not what it actually said (but had a good laugh in my head).

[SoCalVal]

I have a work friend who was on call once, and he got a work call while he was at the movies.  His response was "I'll call you back later."  That did NOT go over well with the bosses.  To this day, he still doesn't really understand what he did wrong - "I was at the MOVIES!  What was I supposed to do?"

We had a physician who was once on-call over the weekend who, when paged, said she was hanging out at her pool with her kids and wasn't going to be bothered (she was incensed the medical resident on duty was bothering her).  The reason *I* know about it is because it resulted in an incident, thus resulting in an incident report needing to be filed by my department (Pharmacy) to explain why the patient did not receive his/her med in a timely fashion or, possibly, at all.  I sure hope she got a huge reaming from her supervisor for that (incident reports are official and, while they are not intended to get individuals in trouble but to correct where something went wrong, there was definitely a preventable action and unacceptable attitude here).

[Elfmama]

I have a work friend who was on call once, and he got a work call while he was at the movies.  His response was "I'll call you back later."  That did NOT go over well with the bosses.  To this day, he still doesn't really understand what he did wrong - "I was at the MOVIES!  What was I supposed to do?"

We had a physician who was once on-call over the weekend who, when paged, said she was hanging out at her pool with her kids and wasn't going to be bothered (she was incensed the medical resident on duty was bothering her).  The reason *I* know about it is because it resulted in an incident, thus resulting in an incident report needing to be filed by my department (Pharmacy) to explain why the patient did not receive his/her med in a timely fashion or, possibly, at all.  I sure hope she got a huge reaming from her supervisor for that (incident reports are official and, while they are not intended to get individuals in trouble but to correct where something went wrong, there was definitely a preventable action and unacceptable attitude here).

If I was the patient, I certainly hope so!  I was hospitalized after a car accident as a precaution, started getting migraine aura and asked for Imitrex.  I didn't get it for FOUR HOURS.  Triptans like Imitrex need to be taken within 15-20 minutes of first warning to be effective.  By the time it was finally administered, the pill that the nurse brought would have been totally ineffective. I needed an injection, not my favorite way to get that medication.  Fortunately DH was there to interpret "No p-p-p-pill! Shot!"  since by that time that was all I could force out through the pain.       And I apologized to the nurse later, since the last thing I want to be is "that patient."

[SoCalVal]

That reminds me of when I was interning on a container vessel. One day we were docked in Bordeaux and our (Philipinian) cook took a trip into town for the evening.

From what country is a "Philipinian?" (if you mean someone from the Philippines, that would be "Filipino"; otherwise, I'm clueless trying to figure it out)

[GSNW]

I'm hoping this will be the last story about SS teacher.  Like I said before, it's very, very difficult to be fired by our district.  The most admin can do is make life difficult for bad teachers and encourage them to read the writing on the wall, and bow out gracefully.

Yesterday was the final day of our standardized testing.  We currently have 3 teachers out with chronic illness issues, so the teacher that WAS proctoring SS's tests was needed elsewhere... no choice but to let him test his students. 

1.  SS teacher comes to the testing materials room (they are tightly controlled) 3 minutes before the final bell to pick up his materials. 
2.  SS teacher realizes he has a big class and would like to test in the small auditorium instead of his room, so he demands that our strategist "open the theater for me right now."  Meanwhile, kids are piling up outside his door and not knowing why their teacher isn't there and the room isn't open.
3.  Strategist asks him if he has moved his snacks down to the theater.  We give the kids bars/juice right before testing.  He said, "This is ridiculous, they are 14 years old, they don't need snacks!"  Basically, he didn't want to move his things down to the theater.  Another teacher had to say, "Look SS, this is part of our testing procedure... get them their snacks and do it now."

As you may have read/could expect, admin has been on this guy's rear end all year.  Yesterday in the staff lounge, he announced that he was moving back to home state to get his MBA and found his own magazine.  I wasn't there, but according to others he said, "I don't want to work for anyone but myself!  I can supervise myself."

I'd say he's made the first part abundantly clear this year, as to the second part, we shall see.  Here's hoping his replacement is super awesome.