Do you work in Dilbert's office?

[Frostillicus]

Was reading Citzfish's recent post, and was pondering my awful past week (was moving, too - gah!)...

I work at one of those awful 'Officespace' type offices. Right out of Dilbert.  It's a constant battle with our national office over petty things.  They spent a lot of money on the logo (it's so depressing) and so the 'brand' is fiercely protected by suits in NYC.  We tried to get balloons with our logo on them, and were turned down.  When we inquired why...it took 3 phone calls to different people...we were told that "when the balloon pops, the logo no longer appears as it should."    

It's one of those offices where "if it doesn't cost over a thousand dollars it's not worth having."  The company is so big it's like there's no one person approving things.   Reminds me of 'The Cube' movie.  The plus is that I can request expensive software, but just feels like a waste - especially when they lay off people.

I can't be the only one with a Dilbert story....let's hear 'em

[Bomber]

I've moved from one big multi-national company to another. Now I work for a small (less than 5 employees!) private company and it is so much better. Its great not having a staff number anymore!

The best/worst story I 've got is that 300 employees were made redundant  the day of our christmas party. I was lucky enough to dodge the bullet, but the party was a bit weird. Not a lot of partying going on. But everyone was up for the free alcohol!

There's probably a lot of others that I have regressed from my memory. Too painful to go back. And too many looooong hours.

[Apollo]

What I hate is upper management moaning about sales targets and cost over runs and then the friggin marketing department sends me a full colour brochure with a pen and a desk calender and a whole lot of other useless crap telling me about a new company product that I have already been selling for a month and know everything there is to know about it!!! HOW MUCH DID THAT COST TO PUT TOGETHER!!!
@#$@!%

[Sasquatch!]

Morale is at an all-time low at my office.  We just had our annual "Employee Appreciation Day", and the suits had a raffle.  The winner won a $2 bungee cord.  I fully expected someone to find her in the washroom hanging by it.

[shmokes]

I'm the network administrator for a local gov't agency in Southern Utah.  I do ALL the computer work for six offices spread out over five counties.  Only two of those offices have LANs to speak of, one of which consists of about 30 computers and the other about 50.  The LANS are connected to the state WAN and we get a few services, such as email and DNS over the WAN from the State IT people, so I don't have to administer those.

I do EVERYTHING related to computers for them.  I do a fair amount of travelling between offices, but that's nice since Utah is probably in the top five for most scenic states in America.  The people at my work have absolutely no idea what I do.  As long as everything is running I could just not show up to work.  As long as I didn't make a habit of it I could probably get away with not showing up for work one day without even calling in.  Everybody would just assume I was in another office.  I cannot be micromanaged because there is not a single employee with the slightest idea how to use a computer beyond MS Office applications.  When I finish school and leave this job in a couple of years I plan to move to NYC.  My STARTING salary will at least double, concievably triple, when I move to NYC, but I will probably never enjoy the kind of freedom I have hear in a big city -- at least not unless I start my own business or win the lottery.  

I love my job.  

[eightbit]

I'm the network administrator for a local gov't agency in Southern Utah.  I do ALL the computer work for six offices spread out over five counties.  Only two of those offices have LANs to speak of, one of which consists of about 30 computers and the other about 50.  The LANS are connected to the state WAN and we get a few services, such as email and DNS over the WAN from the State IT people, so I don't have to administer those.

I do EVERYTHING related to computers for them.  I do a fair amount of travelling between offices, but that's nice since Utah is probably in the top five for most scenic states in America.  The people at my work have absolutely no idea what I do.  As long as everything is running I could just not show up to work.  As long as I didn't make a habit of it I could probably get away with not showing up for work one day without even calling in.  Everybody would just assume I was in another office.  I cannot be micromanaged because there is not a single employee with the slightest idea how to use a computer beyond MS Office applications.  When I finish school and leave this job in a couple of years I plan to move to NYC.  My STARTING salary will at least double, concievably triple, when I move to NYC, but I will probably never enjoy the kind of freedom I have hear in a big city -- at least not unless I start my own business or win the lottery.  

I love my job.  

Why in the world are you planning to move to NYC? Can I have your job when you do?

[ntjedi]

All that comes to mind (that I havent repressed) is people being promoted to their highest level of incompetence (specifically my boss, but there were many)!  

Thankfully I dont work for that company anymore.  I was hating life.

[shmokes]

Because aside from my work there is nothing here for me.  I live in a town of 30,000 with no diversity at all.  90% of the population belongs to the dominant religion, which happens to be a particularly introverted religion.  It is difficult to socialize because even when you find someone that you get along with, they are made extremely uncomfortable if they are in close proximity to you and you, say, drink a beer.  At least 50% of that 90% won't watch rated R movies.  

Lack of diversity aside I am getting pretty bored with living in a rural town of 30,000 people where I have to drive for 45 minutes to reach a town of 100,000 and three hours before I get to a real city, Las Vegas, which is just about my least favorite big city in America.

Another problem is the political extremism.  You can almost not imagine, without living here, how far right this community is.  It's like 30,000 John Ashcrofts.  I cannot vote in primary elections here because voters can only vote within their registered party here and democrats do not, would not, waste their time and money running for office.  Even if you are registered as an independant you cannot vote in the republican or hypothetical democrat primary.  Franchises such as the Olive Garden have considered opening here and declined because there are only a certain number of liquor licences available based on population and wealthy private citizens have purchased them up and pay the yearly fees associated so that there will be none available for establishments that want to serve alcohol.  

I could seriously go on and on.  It's not just a few loud citizens, it's a whole culture of intolerance, bigotry.  I'd have to go into the deep south, I think, to find a more blatantly racist, not to mention homophobic culture.  

I love my job.  I just can't stay here.

[Dartful Dodger]

...we were told that "when the balloon pops, the logo no longer appears as it should."    

Ha ha

I work for a multimedia company programming corporate CD's - translation I make that useless crap that clutters up Apollo's desk.  

We deal with a lot of old time companies that have these crazy rules about their colors and logos.  One company had a book on the subject, what colors could and can't be on the same page as their logo, how far down the page the logo can be placed....

...Anyway one funny story is, this other company had specific colors for their logo and the text for their company name. They only dealt in print and this was their first CD advertisement. They couldn't understand that all monitors are different, and that colors were never the same on any two computers, even if you had all the CMYK numbers matching.  What made it worse was our graphics guy had installed some custom Photoshop color setting on all our computers, so our Dell's colors wouldn't even match other Dells.  After a week of sending them sample cds, the client came into our office with this color card, and she held it up to the monitor of her lap top and said see it's not the same.  btw when we held it up to our monitor, it was the same.  This was one of those situations were I had to say I'm just the programmer and I took an early lunch.

[Chris]

For about two years, we had a vice-president who was the living embodiment of the Pointy-Haired Boss.  We had several pieces of equipment he refused to allow to be replaced or upgraded as long as they had any functionality left at all, so employees would resort to physically breaking their equipment hoping for upgrades.  And after a power failure, he went ballistic and demanded advance notice and approval for any future power failures.  NOT KIDDING.

--Chris

[mpm32]

Shmokes,  are you in Utah?  Sounds like Utah from your description.  I travel there for work and it has a very weird vibe.  Sort of like a stepford wives or like if you walked in a room and everyone was smiling at you but had knives behind their backs that you couldn't see.

[soslo]

I work for one Toyota and they have a "big office" style. Literally everyone is in little cubicles in one giant office...even management...supervisors, assistant managers, managers, general managers...

Needless to say, it is possible to hear just about everything anyone says...and see what everyone is doing...quite interesting!

[Chris]

Shmokes,  are you in Utah?  Sounds like Utah from your description.  I travel there for work and it has a very weird vibe.  Sort of like a stepford wives or like if you walked in a room and everyone was smiling at you but had knives behind their backs that you couldn't see.

I notice Shmokes' first message started with "I'm the network administrator for a local gov't agency in Southern Utah."

I've never been there myself...

[mpm32]

Oh err <smacks own head>  I missed his first post

[menace]

I used to work at a dilbert place but quit--then they came to me and said--will you please keep working--you can do it from home if you want?  so naturally I said yes!  The only pointy haired creature around here is the cat and he's no evil HR rep thats for sure    Keep the sories coming--I love hearing what its like ont he outside  

[Valence]

I used to work at a dilbert place but quit--then they came to me and said--will you please keep working--you can do it from home if you want?  so naturally I said yes!  The only pointy haired creature around here is the cat and he's no evil HR rep thats for sure    Keep the sories coming--I love hearing what its like ont he outside  

<envy>
ASS
</envy>

 

[shmokes]

Shmokes,  are you in Utah?  Sounds like Utah from your description.  I travel there for work and it has a very weird vibe.  Sort of like a stepford wives or like if you walked in a room and everyone was smiling at you but had knives behind their backs that you couldn't see.

Yepp...Utah, and not just Salt Lake, this is rural Utah.  It's a whole other world.  I'll commonly see a dozen polygamists in one day.  They all dress the same and have the same hairdo.  Weird.  And when I say that they all dress the same I mean to say that all the women wear long sleeve dresses with pants on underneath.  Not just leggings either, I'm talking full-on Levi's.  This is Southern Utah, where, for instance, in St. George, the largest city in Southern Utah, 112 degrees is a perfectly common temperature in July and August.  And then they all have the exact same hairdo.  So, needless to say you know when you've seen a polygamist.  And if my wife is dressed in normal summer clothes -- shorts, tank top, etc. -- she always gets evil looks.  That part is pretty funny    

Anyway, pretty perceptive of you to pick up on my location based on my description.

[SuperBoB2Turbo]

I'm a software engineer at a cube farm, clueless management business, and I'm living the classic engineering Dilbert scenario:

Management: "Why isn't the project done?! We're behind schedule and the customer is pissed!"

Me: "Well, no one has ever figured out or written down the requirements/specs."

Management: "Well, you write them!"

Me: "Well, I could do that, but then we'll end up with a product that's not what you or the customer actually wanted."

Management: "Well here, we'll just whip some out.  How about blah, blah blah."

Me: "Okay, but those requirements are incomplete, ambiguous, conflicting and just not very good."

Management: "Well...uh...RE-ORG!!!"

I've been here about a year and a half and we've been through three re-orgs.  Each time, they just shuffle around the management and resources without fixing any of the deficiencies in the actual work process.

I try not to complain too much though, because I live in Ohio, so the average engineer's salary the pay me (plus my wife works) is plenty to afford a house with a full basement filled with a MAME cabinet and an MP3 jukebox (both made with the help of the wonderful BYOAC community   ) along with a bar, a pool table, a foosball machine, etc.

[1UP]

Yes, you're better off in a small town!  Your salary may double in a place like NYC, but your living expenses will AT LEAST triple!  I'm a special effects animator in Los Angeles, and whenever I tell people that, they think I must be rich.  But they don't hear the last part: Los Angeles.  I make almost triple what I ever made in Arizona, but my rent is double, and my utilities and taxes are triple, so in the end I'm living a lifestyle only a little above what I had in Arizona.  For what I'm paying for rent on a 1BR apartment in a crappy neighborhood, I could afford a nice house in suburbian AZ with a gameroom.

Anyway, my office story...  I used to work at Fox Animation when they were in Phoenix (when Don Bluth was there) and it was just a big savings and loan building (Charlie Keating's old place) lined with 300 cubicles.  Every time they made an announcement in the effects department, heads would pop up like groundhogs.  Right before the first film tanked, they promoted a bunch of inbetweeners to assistants, which meant raises for the lucky folks.  After the release, when Anastasia failed to produce Disney-like numbers, the execs decided to axe a bunch of the inbetweeners, many of whom had come from other parts of the country.  I was one of the unlucky to be downsized, just a few weeks before I was supposed to get married... how great is that?  

In the end, it was a good thing, since they gave me the equivalent of 4 months pay for severance, giving me time to find a better job.  That's when I moved to LA.  Fortunately, although I worked for Warner Bros for a while, most of the places I've worked have been smaller studios, where the owner is actually the art director, and we have fewer than 20 people on staff.  This makes for a more tight-knit group, with no office politics, and way less stress than a big cube farm.  The stress of having to look for freelance work for the 1-2 months a year that the small houses are geared down, is much less than the stress of being in a big studio every day for 3 years, putting up with all the competition for promotions, red tape, and BS, and I'm much happier for it!

[jakejake28]

just wonderin, schmokes, but whats the general reaction to "oh i have a few arcadse at home"?

[kspiff]

I work for Convergys CMG.  The author of Dilbert used to work for Cvgs and his strip is based on that job.

[shmokes]

just wonderin, schmokes, but whats the general reaction to "oh i have a few arcadse at home"?

Mostly quiet and tactful derision.

[Nannuu]

Hey Shmokes I just moved from St George a year ago!  And yes, yes it is a bit of an odd place.  The funniest part is seeing the polygamist wives with the same hair and same clothes.  Why would you want multiple wives if they are all going to look the same?!  Wouldn't the point be to have some variety?  Anyway, always thought that was funny.

But to the original post.  Yep, I do work in Dilbert's office.  In the year that I've had my new job, I've had 3 different managers, 5 different desk locations in 3 different buildings but haven't changed jobs.  Yep, re-orgs are fun.

[AlanS17]

I work for Convergys CMG.  The author of Dilbert used to work for Cvgs and his strip is based on that job.

I have several friends that work for Convergys down here in south Texas. They ahve so many rules it almost seems like high school with a closed campus. Maybe management isn't treated like children, but I don't know any managers.

[RacerX]

I could seriously go on and on.  It's not just a few loud citizens, it's a whole culture of intolerance, bigotry.  I'd have to go into the deep south, I think, to find a more blatantly racist, not to mention homophobic culture.  

I love my job.  I just can't stay here.

Hey, don't bad-mouth the deep south!  We LOVE to drink!  

[team OBryan]

I use to work for a large electronic manufacturing company as an Engineering Technician. We each had a cubicle in an area full of cubicles. I always complained because you could always hear everything going on in the cubicles around you. People singing way off key with headsets on, not to loud just loud enough to torture you. Phone calls to girlfriends , boyfriends , wives, husbands, even there dog. Then one day they sent some guy for the main office to make us more productive. His great idea was for us to tear down the walls that separate us from each others creativity. When I came back to work my desk was on the production floor right in front of the production line I worked on. No walls, desk right out in the open. I would sit down to read my email and people would stop working and start reading over my shoulder. People would steal stuff of my desk and deface any pictures I had. Then they started a voluntary mandatory 15 min exercise program a day. I run on my own 3 times a week so why exercise with about a 100 people in a hall way doing jumping jacks. I got out of it by saying that was the best time for me to make adjustments to the production line.
   Now I work for another big company but I do field work. They give me my own company vehicle which I can use for personal use just have to report the personal mile to Uncle Sam for taxes. My office is small and I share it with 2 other guys but we are almost never there. We work mostly out of our house and vehicle. I have never regreted quiting my other job for this one four years ago.I do have to go to the main office maybe twice a year. The last time I was there I noticed the I.S. department had no more cubicles. So I ask what happened why are all your desk out in the open. He said there new department head wanted to improve communication by taking down the walls that separate them form each other. I tried not to smile but I could not help it.

[shmokes]

Hey Shmokes I just moved from St George a year ago!  And yes, yes it is a bit of an odd place.  The funniest part is seeing the polygamist wives with the same hair and same clothes.  Why would you want multiple wives if they are all going to look the same?!  Wouldn't the point be to have some variety?  Anyway, always thought that was funny.

But to the original post.  Yep, I do work in Dilbert's office.  In the year that I've had my new job, I've had 3 different managers, 5 different desk locations in 3 different buildings but haven't changed jobs.  Yep, re-orgs are fun.

Nannuu, I'm so bummed.  I live in Cedar city.  I work in St. George at least two days a week, more in case of computer emergencies.  I've got a helluva arcade project coming along, though.  I haven't worked on it at al since school started...I'm kinda hoping I can get to it this weekend, but I've got at least one big haloween party and I don't know if I'll be up to it.  I've had a whole bottle of wine...I hope I'm coherent.

[SoooPig]

Nice posts so far....
I work for a very large (well known) government contractor.  Geeezz talk about Dilbertland.  The Dilbertest think is our corporate compliance training.  We have about 35 different training courses that we have to take on an annual basis.  IT Security, Diversity, Safety, Ethics, How to eat a donut safely... You name it, theres a dang course we are required to complete for it.
The best was the Ethics course a few years back.  It was actually designed by the Dilbert folks!  It was funny hearing management read dilbert cartoons that were aimed at them.  I'm suprised the universe didn't collapse at that point.

[Pixelhugger]

Shmokes- I feel your pain. Er- at least I *felt* it. I went to school in Utah, and while (during my 5 yrs there) - never saw an actual polygamist, I know what you're talking about. The political situation is intolerable. The lack of diversity is pathetic. The culture - or lack thereof - is laughable. I grew up just outside Berkeley, so I too was a bit of a fish out of water.  I have to say Provo was about 50 years behind the times. Hard to believe evolution could still be a *hot* topic on ANY college campus - and the pall that fell over the campus when Clinton was re-elected had the student body somber for a long, long time.

There was a definite counter culture to be had in Provo, perhaps due to it's proximity to the only slightly less conservative Salt Lake City and Park City. Knowing that things get logarithmically worse the further south you go, I guess the same doesn't hold true for Cedar City, though it's university should contain at least a small number of dissidents...

Ah, well....at least you've got the Shakespeare festival. And MAME.