Doing time at the DMV

In the DMV good things come to those who wait, for hours.

Before going in I was warned of the long lines just for waiting. Some said to expect waiting times of a couple of hours or more, but inside I was unconvinced. I was so sure that a functioning government organisation wouldn’t allow waiting times like that, what about customer service? Because if it really took that long people would complain, people would have to take a day off work to tax their car, who would go? I told myself that people exaggerate over everything and this is no different.

Turns out the American people are insane over their cars, and will do a lot of waiting to drive.

It’s hard to believe I could have watched the entire Matrix trilogy, I could have driven across the Arizona desert or flown coast to coast in the time I was waiting. I could have done lots of things.

I couldn’t figure out the dysfunction or the delay. How there could be approximately fifty tellers occupied and still about a thousand people waiting in a line that wrapped around the building. Remember this is repeated every day.

As you are waiting for your ticket to be called you are reminded you had an option to book a meeting online, which would have meant no waiting time. What they don’t tell you is that you have to wait at least 6 weeks for one of those appointments.

Another bit of useless info on offer is the current waiting time at the neighbouring DMV office in case you wanted to compare.

But when your number is called, there are no words, you feel like a million bucks.

No Means No, Cheapskate!

I’ve been on eBay quite a lot lately, it’s become one of life’s necessary evils when you’re having a clearout and it’s ever so slightly addictive too sometimes.

But evil had a new face this week when I decided to sell an item with a starting price. Having been burned before, I decided what the hay I’ll pay a couple of extra coins to sell my item for a price I was prepared to sell it for. Simple, yes? No, absolutely not.

Earlier this week John got in touch. He started off nice with a friendly warm tone, asking me whether I was willing to accept half the amount I asked for, offering naturally to pay by Paypal right away “of course”.

I politely declined, using clear eBay language, “I would like to let the auction run its course”.

The problem apparently went away, but a couple of days later re-emerged when he, pushier this time, raised his offer to “a fair” £90 and again said he was willing to pay immediately.

Even though he had bad spelling, I declined politely again because you have to be nice in sales, and any negative feedback on eBay is the enemy.

This time John was not happy and he sent this, from his Blackberry device:

“Sorry, I was meant to email you again to retract the offer. I believe £90 is too much…I have four better models in my myebay which went for less than £70. Let’s see if yours sells….I will definitely not bid. But good luck.”

I couldn’t help but recall other experiences I’ve had with cheap rude people/bullies.

Like when I worked as a waitress in an all-you-could-eat buffet restaurant, adult prices were £4.95 with a drink, for children under 8 it was £2.95, and toddlers weren’t charged. At tea time, often mothers would pile in with many many kids in tow, willing to pay for themselves but not all of their children for whatever reason.

I’ll never forget one woman making a scene with:

“NO, you’re not listening, I said I’ll pay for me and her but I’ll not pay for him, and those two and her cos she’ll only ‘ave ice cream anyway! Go on tell her Levi you’re not hungry anyway are ya?!”

Office Fireworks. People Who Keep Other People Down, Just For Kicks

Photo Credit: Nancy Chan

Every day, a new lesson in crapness is waiting to be learned and I look forward to it like an bad egg being cracked onto my head, rolling down my face and some getting into my mouth.

I’m very bored now of the sad characters I encounter. I can only imagine how much it pains their brains to see a woman making decisions rather than tea or photocopies.

Take Pete, the type of professional always in agreement with you when you agree with him. But if there is some misalignment between your thought pattern and his, suddenly he turns into someone who is not your friend.

We are not on good terms now after I crossed him a few weeks ago, he does not forgive easily. So now he likes to publicly ask me to arrange meetings for him, it’s all very sad, and embarrassing for us both. Needless to say he is still waiting for his meetings.

Then there are those that simply don’t listen, both in and out of the workplace.

I’m currently dealing with a property agent Jason who appears to be very confused about his role, and is telling me how much to sell my parent’s property for.

He is a relatively young (late thirties) and ambitious character, not a bad thing, but sadly he isn’t at all in touch with his client, and also how dispensable he really is. He has put together a payment scheme with the buyer and thinks that I’ll meet with them tomorrow to sign off on it. What Jason doesn’t know is that I can actually use a calculator and he is screwing me over to close a deal. I will make him see the error of his ways tomorrow but more importantly I ask myself, is it me? After all, I am the common denominator here; time and time again I come across guys who for whatever reason are rude, don’t listen and think they know better.

Again, is it me?

After contemplating that horrid thought for a moment, I say “Fuck no! Hand me the baseball bat, I have some knee caps to break and baldies to scalp!”

I Want to Move Desks

Photo Credit: Nancy Chan

Kathy is an older person now. Bless her.

What people don’t know is that with each day that passes, I grow much older with her, possibly 3-4 months/day.

She’s sucking the life out of me. I am literally losing sight of everything, powerlessly watching as it disappears into the smoke cloud constantly blowing out of the gaps in her mouth where her teeth used to be.

If its not the heavy hammering on the keyboard, it’s the random moans and groans that come with getting into and out of her chair. Often out of nowhere she would laugh out loud at something she’s reading on her computer.

It’s also the monotonous telephone ramblings, the extended meetings at her desk, the uninvited and unstoppable conversations.

More recently she’s started to doing little dances and clapping and waving her arms around.

I’ve had enough and I want to move desks, I’m tired of waiting for her to take a holiday.

Have You Seen the Rocket Man?

Photo Credit: Nancy Chan

Meet Mega Mouth a.k.a. the Rocket Man. After being bounced around up and down the country because nobody wants him, he has landed in our playground and is stealing everybody’s milk and lunch money.

Devoid of social skills and friendships, this guy operates in a vertical management world where he is the only one around with a rocket pack to the top. In fact, I am still not sure what he thinks everyone else here does, not that it matters, because it’s what he does that counts.

If he has five questions to ask you, he will send you five quick fire emails (some as frequent as a minute apart), each sent at the precise moment the thoughts were conceived in his massive brain.

He can regularly be seen vomiting lines (soon to be classics) like:

‘Don’t send out that meeting invite blank, because then it will be blank’

‘Can you provide a short background note on that summary?’

‘Efficacy? That’s not a word, can you remove it please, we want English’

Oh no, he’s coming over.

Have You Seen This Man?

Photo Credit: Nancy Chan

I’m tired of my boss complaining about Mo.

Mo has been in our small team of five for around two years now.

I want to say ‘Yes he gets paid a lot, no he doesn’t do any work, and yes he gets away with it…but it’s been happening ever since the day he was hired so why do you bring it up now?’

Here is a brief bio on Mo:

• He takes lots of time off;
• He consistently does not deliver;
• He’s social so he likes catching up with mates on the phone;
• He likes chatting to colleagues about football and the local elections (he’s campaigning actually);
• He doesn’t do all his hours (last in-first out and long lunch breaks);
• Probably doesn’t have enough time to do his work; and
• I suspect doesn’t even understand most of the work he’s required to do.

But yesterday my boss even said she wonders why she hired him. She was shaking her head telling me she wasn’t the only one interviewing. Apparently even Gary interviewed him.

I must say, the hiring of Mo has long been a mystery to me too, but since I was also interviewed by the same panel just a month earlier, I kept quiet about it.

But all the time I’m thinking… he’s gotten away with it for so long so who is the real genius among us?

The more time I spend thinking about it, the more I’m behind Mo, which is why I say…

Get Mo!

I believe in Mo!

Go Mo!

And if you want to see a real problem, take a look at Steve!

Sailing On Verbal Diarrhoea

Photo Credit: Nancy Chan

I’m one of those people who don’t like their time being needlessly wasted. When things take longer than they need to, I feel like I’m being conned. If time is money, I don’t like to feel like the sucker who pays too much all the time.

Lately the frustration has turned to anxiety and affects most areas of work, including meetings, conversations with Kathy, and emails.

In meetings it’s mildly comforting knowing that many are in the same boat, even if we do find ourselves sailing apparently directionless for 30 minutes on the strength of one person’s breath.

But lately I see it’s the emails that are the silent killer, they’ve managed to creep up and blow all sorts of electronic diarrhoea in your face. It occurred to me today how some people like to dance around decisions in emails, instead of making them; we have a number of open-ended options presented for information we need to decipher.

Then there are the round robin emails that go round the design team for weeks, chasing important decisions that run out of steam because nobody accepts any responsibility for what is said, but needs to have it on record that they said something.

It just becomes noise after awhile.