tags: faculty

my current office stories and excitement

Change Management

I suspect Management might be worried about something...

Just to advise you that there are places available on the following courses, taking place in the near future, as follows;

Employment Law

Personal Impact of Change & Uncertainty

PDR (appraiser training)

Resilience – Bouncing Back

Bullying & Harassment in the Workplace

Managing Stress in the Workplace – workshop for Managers

Aspergers & Autism

Customer Care

Equality & Diversity

Heath & Safety

Submitted by dash on Sat, 28/04/2012 - 13:57

860 reads
Comments

Infinite Loop

Haha...

So this guy gets shuffled out of his job and in the spirit of being considerate and helpful, he sets up his out of office to let everybody know he has gone.

He helpfully copies in the new email account, so whoever receives his out of office knows where to go next.

The new email account automatically replies to emails expressing thanks for the interest and assuring all and sundry that someone, somewhere is dealing with the query, no matter how small...

To which it receives an out of office reply, in which it is itself copied so it knows where to go next.

In the spirit of giving, it automatically replies to each of these expressing thanks for the interest and assuring all and sundry that someone, somewhere is dealing with the query, no matter how small...

Each of these replies, receives two replies....

Submitted by dash on Sat, 28/04/2012 - 13:57

268 reads
Comments

Takedown

(Official voiceover) Skip The Budgie has received a Takedown notice from representatives of The Faculty, and so in the interests of keeping my nice, newly acquired job I have decided to remove all Faculty-related stories from the site. The words 'defamation', 'libellous', 'responsibility' and 'disappointed', featured quite heavily in the discussion (which in all honesty, are probably fairly accurate). So I have decided to keep these thoughts to myself and may yet explode,1 but at least have been spared the humiliation of having to buy cakes for everybody I may have offended (of whom, let's face it, there are probably many).

Seriously though, too many people from work have been reading this (thanks, The Grapevine!) and I may not have been giving the best impression of the office, or indeed myself, so in the interest of the team I am taking it down.

Here is a picture of our lovely new archway instead:

1. Please note, I will NOT be your Facebook Friend if I work with you. Sorry, but if life has taught me anything...

Submitted by da-sh on Wed, 10/06/2009 - 12:47

1134 reads
Comments

The Holiday is Over

The girl bunnyhops off the pavement just as the bus is pulling away. The bus goes to overtake and she throws her arm out, swerving across in front of us without so much as a backward glance. She nearly dies under the wheels, a crushed mangled mess of limbs and bicycle, her cycle helmet little help against the weight of the vehicle. But the driver slams on the brakes, bangs his fist on the horn and shares some choice expletives as he spares her life for today. Somehow I don't think she is long for this world.

I return from my exciting week (Canoeing, Gardening, Feasting) refreshed, with a bicycle that HAS a chain and gears that work and lots of enthusiasm for work. My last couple of days before the holiday were spent purging and taking ownership of my office (MY office), I must have got rid of at least half the old crap (Windows 3.1 manuals; how to use email; Graduation photos from 1999 etc) and now have a nice clear desk to rest my feet on. The usual full inbox keeps me occupied until after lunch and I think I'm getting a handle on what needs doing, I feel like I've hardly been in work at all these last few months.

So the summer exams are nearly over and have surpassed all expectations thus far. Surprisingly little has gone awry, the usual odd labelling of coversheets, missing answer books and large print question papers. Some students complain that they don't understand the questions and the Head of School tells them only to answer half the paper. It turns out that the questions are fine and the students just didn't go to any lectures. Our student who is allowed to take his answers into the exams with him complains because the 100% extra time we have given him was inclusive of breaks, and yet in a six hour exam he only manages eight pages.

I should be feeling more like a Manager now this is my Actual Proper Job. Whenever my guys ask me for work to do, I really don't have any to give them. They've already done all the tedious repetitive jobs that I didn't want to do. I'm back in more of a trouble-shooting supervisory role, which on one hand is great, because you just sort of get given easy work by everybody and on the other hand is terrible because you have to make sure you always have something for them to do. I have acquired another underling so I am now in charge of three.

My absences seem to have strengthened New Boy's enthusiasm for his job, he is off Doing Things and Organising Stuff and I am able to sit back and actually catch up with all the things I was supposed to be doing all year. Like writing minutes from September, that sort of thing. I suspect he is getting a bit carried away as he launches into a tirade about one of my other team 'members', who likes to do as little as possible and doesn't know the alphabet. We are going to have to have a Little Chat about not taking sick days after big parties or when you have to move house.

Oh yes, there was a small matter of having to do Jury Duty as well. Here is the lowdown on THAT debacle: I read two very good books in my two weeks in the courts, The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies, both by Scott Lynch. I actually make it INTO court twice, the first time I fail all the questions and can't be on the Jury and the second time we watch a horrific paedo-incest interview, then sit around for two days before the judge tells us we may as well go home and he'll get another Jury next week... That's me doing my Civil Duty, right there.

Submitted by dash on Mon, 01/06/2009 - 17:10

146 reads
Comments

Thee True Ande Detayled Ackount Of Thee Interviewee

Well maybe you should use this as an opportunity to give up then? Um, maybe you should move your stuff off the sugar bowl so that I can get some sugar? Another lady seems uncomfortably interested in whether I'm feeling okay. Are you alright? She asks about three times. I have no idea why she does this, I just said hello - that's what you're supposed to do right? And people wonder why I don't understand people.

I am disheartened when my International Posting Book goes wandering for a couple of weeks. When I get it back, the culprits have signed off loads of packages, so it's not as if I can't go and hassle them. I opt to write PLEASE DO NOT STEAL in big unfriendly red letters on the cover. Also the whole stealing my giant stapler thing, what is wrong with these people?

Anyway, I am forced to do an interview to keep my job - there was a lot of dithering about whether my predecessor would come back or not and it seems the University eventually paid her to stay away1 and as a result put the job on the market.

So I come into work in a suit, watch the other candidates wander in and out and wonder what questions I am supposed to ask at the end. I work through the laughable 20 minute Arrange these jobs in order of priority test and then sit outside the room for an hour. My Interviewers are my boss, her boss and some random from another Faculty. There is no token man. The whole experience feels unreal, as I stumble around the poorly conceived questions, knowing full well what kind of answers they are looking for. My voice adopts an uneasy monotone and I keep catching myself looking at the ceiling, which you are not supposed to do because it looks like you're lying.

These are always crazy situations, I did the same interview over a year ago, so I've been doing this job for a year and the other people who have applied think they're in with a chance? Even worse - I think I'M in with a chance? I spend the morning writing notes, trying to formalise some good reasons why I'm better than anybody else they could pick. What makes ME stand apart. I'm calm, sarcastic, efficient, great at organising people and running things. Nothing fell over in the last year. What kind of manager am I? How do I deal with difficult people? How do I deal with pressure? Do I spend all day on the internet? What makes a good team? Oh, just shoot me now.

So I say my bit, I don't ask them if they've heard about the bird and then I sit around for 2 hours while everybody else in the office tells me there's no chance that I haven't got it. But what if one of the others is really good? One of them is from downstairs, who I see every day and now we have this weird atmosphere of rivalry even though we rarely share more than a nod over the milk machine.

So they invite me into the little side room and tell me quietly that they think I'm too laid back and I can't get myself across very well in an interview. Then they say that despite all of this, they've decided to offer me the job anyway. Ha. Ha.

And now the woman from downstairs is giving me death eyes because she feels like all of her stress yesterday was a waste of time. But I suppose I don't really care, because now I actually have a proper job at last.