Modern Vespa

Just missed out by £1.00 on an original 1.18 Die Cast Model of a BMW R1100RT in exactly the same colour as mine on Ebay.

It was an official BMW product sold in the dealerships.

I'm very unhappy.

Internet at work is SUUUUPER slow today.

So, we have a kitchenette in the front office where we have a fridge for keeping food and a microwave for heating food and an oven for cooking food and a coffee maker and a sink for washing up.

Quite often people will either bring food in and leave it on the table. Or, if they cater in a lunch, the leftover food will be left on the table for people to pick over.

Today, someone left this on the table. You know, where people put food.

Yuuch!

But it's free!

Well, there's THAT.

Recently the company IT department modified Windows so that copy/paste doesn't work anymore. Also. To install and run software (including "run as admin" and updates for some software) I need to apply for specific permission using Easy Vista. When applying in Easy Vista I need to search for and choose my user name (while being logged into the PC). After selecting my user name (while being logged in) I have to put in my cost centre 10 digit number (please note the copy/paste above). Then I have to search for and select my supervisor to approve the nonsense.
If there was only some simple way of filling this information in. Like maybe look at the user logged into the PC and use that information in Easy Vista.
This is the same company that runs 3 separate databases for different parts of the business, and keeps the most important information securely stored in Excel files.
A US company that is a leading technological company in its business category.

My brother in-law died today.

Still processing .

Thinking of the good times.

Very, very sorry for your loss.

What version of Windows are you running? We are on 10 at work, and I find the WIN+v paste handy. It's a multi clipboard.

But that's probably disabled as well if you can't even copy.

Can you extract .zip files? Perhaps you could 'install' by extracting a portable app. There are a couple Clipboard managers on www.portableapps.com

Opening Zip files make Windows take a coffee break. But I have 7zip installed and use that to unpack them.

AARP finally caught up with me.

I turn 56 this year, so they're only 6 years late.

About an hour ago I was getting a pair of tyres replaced on the Mighty Hyundai by a local Franchised place about 500 yards from me who gives exceptional Customer Service.

They are a bit short staffed today so initially I wait a while to be seen but once they clock me the car is in and the wheels are off.

While I'm waiting a shaven headed tattooted twat driving a Jaguar I Pace comes in and looks around Reception for service and because I like the Staff here I mentioned to the goon that I also waited a few minutes at first but he'll probably been seen quite soon.

That wasn't enough for this go so he immediately starts punching the number at Reception into his phone which answers in the Workshop by the guy whose working on my car.

Tyre Fitting Guy comes back to the main desk and starts making sucking noises as Knucklehead Man's car is an EV so they may not have the tyres in stock as they have to be matched and the car it's also on a Lease so the replacement has to be like for like, which isn't what this guy wants to hear so he starts doing the huff and puff thing.

Now whether this was B/S or not I don't know but I got the impression that the Shop Manager didn't like this guy's tone so he may have been just making life difficult but Ho Hum, He holds the power.

At this point my car arrives so I Pace Man has to move out the way for me to pay my bill and while he's steaming the Manager and I share a joke about me paying their wages this year ( as this is the second set I've had in 6 months )and at that point he draws my attention to the level of discount I've just received without even asking for any.

He then gives me the most comedic cartoonish wink then nods to I Pace Guy with the implication there's no way that absolutely no way he's going to receive that level of helpfulness.

We both start laughing and I start to leave. As I do a very well dressed Lady walks in and my New Best Friend gives her a welcome which suggested that no matter what the issue was they were going to go out of their way to help her out and I Pace Man could wait, forever.

It was a great example of if you give a little bit you'll get so much back.

I think I pissed off the director today when I was complaining about IT. He had his usual attitude. That it's not our department, we don't have a say in that, we don't have the budget to change things, etc. He then got sour when I repeated back to him what he said in a meeting recently. "If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem." Two hours later his secretary came to my office and asked me not to upset him this much.

I've seen managers fire people for less.

Yeah - they don't want to hear anything that upsets their little worlds. Especially if it's the truth.

If you aren't part of the solution you get precipitated.

I have also seen similar happen and when I have seen it I am out the door right behind the person being fired for BS reasons.

I firmly believe you are either part of the solution or you are the problem. I understand it is not as easy for some folks to just change jobs as it is for people like me who have worked in the trades and regularly change employers.

I have heard many times that you make your own conditions at work. This is literally true for what I spent my career doing and if you stay when you have seen managers fire people for less you are indeed part of the problem.

My question is that how is it when so many Managers end up acting like Arseholes did they get that high up the promotional ladder to a point where they eventually end up behaving like an Arsehole ?

Surely if you were such an Arsehole you'd be like that from day and so promotion would have proven difficult ?

Or alternatively if they have left a different company to fill that position how did they do so well during the interview that HR didn't suss out they'd been an Arsehole in their previous role ?

They usually arse lick their way to promotion

But surely aren't you promoted on your ability to do that job rather than the length of your tongue ?

Usually yes but sometimes tongue length is what does it

No, the British Armed Forces being a case in point.

I only know what I've seen in the auto industry for the last 35 years, but - especially in manufacturing - managers often come from two pools, and no disrespect meant to anyone in the room.

They are either former military OR they are college football players who earned a business degree on a scholarship.

Either way, it's a bit of an Old Boy's club. They have done an excellent job of padding their resumes, but it doesn't always include any real world experience.

My most memorable experience with one of these was while I was a line inspector. I was at the end of a die cast line where we were inspecting and reworking parts from a six cavity tool. I was actually working in tandem with a guy I went to high school with. Manager-Man (football business degree) came out to relieve us for break because they were short handed. We both tried to tell him there was no way he could relieve us both at once, but he protested with a "how hard could it be" attitude. Tim and I shrugged and walked off. Twenty minutes later when we came back we had about eighteen minutes worth of parts to catch up, but it was worth it to see the look on his face. He never spoke about it again.

He was fired a few months later because he came into the shop drunk on an off shift and peed in the wastebasket in the production office. I was not sad to see him go.

What the actual fuck.

It also helps if you have nice boobs and great legs.

I think the same sentiment was passed around by upper management. Right before it was decided said manager didn't fit in with the company dynamic.

I have nice boobs and great legs and I claim my $10.

There's some tea on my keyboard, I think it spewed out of my mouth.

Most people are promoted to one level past their competency. I've seen it happen numerous times.

I've also seem promotions to get an incompetent boob off the production floor, in a union shop.

It does amaze me sometimes how what I think are really good people end up being removed and really bad people end up staying and promoted.

I read not too long ago in the business news that women managers regularly meet their goals and male managers frequently miss them...so maybe its a fragile male ego thing but what I see happening a lot is some young person who really doesn't know anything will be promoted because he will do whatever his superior asks.

Whereas if someone with more experience is promoted as a low level manager they will know how it should be done and how it should go. If they see things not going right they will bring it up to superiors (as in the case with reminding the boss that he said to be the solution) and they really don't want to hear that.

I think for someone like me who worked out of a hiring hall and eventually travelled for work (boomed out) I got to see so many different management styles just because so many different jobs. Pretty soon you start to recognize that some upper middle level managers promote people that will never be a threat to their position...they don't have to worry about a particular foreman ever having ideas of his own and thereby "looking good" to even higher up management which puts the middle managers job at risk.

And then sometimes it would be the opposite and the upper and upper middle managers would try to get the most knowledgeable and experienced people in positions of low level supervision and then actually listen to the feedback they provided to have the job go so much more successfully.

I learned eventually that it was kinda like high school a little bit and you didn't want to let on that you might have a little bit of intelligence to the wrong insecure people as they feel threatened and get rid of you.

It is men. In construction there are not as many women but most of the time given the choice I will pick to work with the women because they are just so much more collaborative. Check your egos fellas and I say this as much to myself as anybody else.

Many years ago boss of the shop where I worked called me in the office to talk to me about a "promotion" to "working group leader". I think he was surprised by my reply.

"Thanks but no thanks!" When he asked why I said "I have no problem explaining why I made a mistake but I don't want to have to spend all my time trying to explain why ten other guys made mistakes or plainly were not getting things done on time."

Jump ahead maybe fifteen years and I was still working in that same shop fixing and maintain the quarries equipment, but everyone else had been let go due to changes made a few steps above that boss.

Management stuff:

When interviewing potential new hires or someone for promotion, I would ask them what did they think of their prior or current boss. The answer to that questoin can tell you much about the candidate.

In our world of work, we all have had to work for great and bad bosses. I was looking for the positive candidate who could survive and support the company even when faced with a crappy boss. As already related in this thread - the reasons for how the crappy ones got into leadership is endless. I wanted the guy/girl who spoke favorably of their prior bosses or related that the boss was in a tough position and they supported him anyway.

Those bad players in leadership are both an expense and liability to the company in employe turnover and poor results from their team.

Working for a competent, helpful and mentally healthy boss is truly refreshing. Also, brains and humility are welcome. I was fortunate to meet some of these folks.

Bob Copeland

They say that power corrupts. I believe that is true for managers as well. Sometimes they might be fine while they are climbing the ladder but they quickly forget how that was.

I'm not in US. Here it's illegal to fire a person without very strong reason. They have to give verbal and written warnings before firing. Apart from that there is a hiring freeze, we are understaffed, and I know too much (about our old products).
So the director will not fire me in the current situation. In few years, when AI can do my job, it might be another story.

In other news. IT against users. Part 3. Today I downloaded updated Excel file to handle time registration. When I opened it Macros were disabled. No problem. I went into trust center to allow Macros to run. Except Macros are allowed to run. I have to figure out how they blocked my work this time, and how to circumvent it. Something to do on Monday.

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Power corrupts.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

"The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another."

"This outcome is inevitable, given enough time and enough positions in the hierarchy to which competent employees may be promoted. The Peter principle is therefore expressed as: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." This leads to Peter's corollary: "In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties."

This ^^^

I was blessed, I guess, as every supervisor I had I liked. Above that level, it was very different. The company I worked for, a global Corp based in Europe replaced their competent VP of IT, with a guy whose background was not in technology at all. His background was in call centers. Massive outsourcing quickly ensued.