[Rant] Work Anecdotes

[ThatNickGuy]

This didn't feel like a whine or a rant or really a random crap thing, sooooo...new thread!

This is the place to post anecdotes, experiences, or random stories from your place of employment.

I had two weird calls so far today:

One elderly customer who only had TV with us called because her heat wasn't working.

Another customer argued with me that their email address was their account number.

So...it's that kind of day.

 

[GasBandit]

Just the other week we had a frantic call from a client that the lighting portion of their AV system wasn't working. Immediately people at work are calling me to demand answers about programming bugs.

To cut a VERY long and ridiculous story short, our service tech arrived on site and found the client had tripped circuit breakers.

 

[Tinwhistler]

Just the other week we had a frantic call from a client that the lighting portion of their AV system wasn't working. Immediately people at work are calling me to demand answers about programming bugs.

To cut a VERY long and ridiculous story short, our service tech arrived on site and found the client had tripped circuit breakers.

I used to get that all the time about server/network errors. People immediately would start calling me about programming bugs. "Can you get to Google? No? Your internet is out. Has nothing to do with the site. Contact your local tech support."

 

[Dirona]

I just had one of these!

I'm currently covering emergencies (i.e. deaths) for a neighbouring colleague. I've done this dozens of times over the years, and I don't think there's ever been something come up.

Last night, as I'm about to start cooking supper, and email comes in saying that someone (who no one knows!) left a message because there was a death. And they want a service on Saturday. Less than 48 hours from then. So, there's a flurry of emails back and forth over the supper hour between me, the office admin, the funeral coordinator at the church, and the music director is cc'd on everything too. At 8:30pm I get a call from the funeral coordinator person asking about... something, and we figure out exactly when the service will be, and I say I will call the family tomorrow morning (aka today). I call the family this morning at 10, get off the phone at 11, and have the order of service ready to go by noon so that bulletins can get printed and musicians can practice. Only to find out that the music director is the one who is supposed to pick the music. Despite them responding to one and only one email previously, and me having gotten the music requests from the family. Sheesh.
Nevertheless, service gets finalized, paperwork gets finalized, and we are now good to go for a funeral mid-day tomorrow. In a church building I have never set foot in, and that depending on how you interpret the emails, may not have amplification.

I do love working in urban churches; there are more resources that you can access. But there are times (this being one of them) where being in a small rural setting where I'm the only one who is involved in service planning is a benefit. This whole coordinating with 3-5 other people is a pain, and super time consuming, which we really do/did not have in this case.

I've never had to throw together a funeral so quickly. It's weird doing it within a church bureaucracy that I don't know and for someone I have never met - that second bit makes it both easier (no emotional baggage) and harder (what do I say that won't sound canned?).

And yes, I am doing this instead of writing the sermon.

 

[General Specific]

We lost 10 positions over the summer due to covid funds running out and finance people just not doing their job with a side of natural attrition. We also decided this past summer to replace about 8 mission-critical pieces of software. Most notably our ticket and inventory software (I'm in IT). Well now we have decided that we need to do a full inventory of the district since previously we just hadn't been keeping good records and most of what was transferred over is garbage.
The good news is that they've given us all the way to Dec. 18th to get it done.
Bad news is that I have to go room-to-room at the High School I now work at and scan in every bit of IT hardware we have.
More bad news, we don't have every model in the inventory to begin with so I have to create most of the items in the rooms.
EVEN MORE BAD NEWS is that not everything got one of our inventory tags and so I can't scan those until I get more tags which have not even come in yet.

I get in at 6:30 every morning so I can walk around for two hours and work on it before the kiddos start flooding the hallways. Right now I can do about half a hallway in those two hours. I've gotten 4 hallways out of 8 done, but also need to get the front offices, gym, and cafeteria as well. I might just have to start barging into rooms during class to get it all done on time.

Oh and I now have 6 wireless access points that are not working correctly that I need to go track down and fix, which is a priority.