Enjablog

It’s review time at work. Had my meeting with my boss today to go over my review. Everything was good overall, set some goals, discussed how things are going.

I think there have been significant improvements in the past 6 months or so. I don’t know if things have actually changed, if my expectations have changed, or if other people have started improving… but I’m trying to keep a positive perspective on things. And maybe this class is such a cluster, work seems to be going smoothly. :)

Ian implemented a new rule that I have to name 5 things that I liked about my job that day before I’m allowed to complain, which, I think, has really cut down on the complaining. So maybe I’ll give him some credit for that.

And my new personal goal is to think of a redeeming quality for each of my coworkers so I can remind myself the next time I get impatient/frustrated with them. Because you all know I will…

• ?????? ????? ????

??? ?????? ????????

• ????????? ??????? ???? ?????

?????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ???

Intern01 –
Pros:
+ Does work.
Cons:
- Loud (voice/demeaner, sucking on fingers after eating, cracking knuckles, picking at hangnails, listening to music on headphones that I can hear while I have my headphones in, talking to himself incessantly at a conversational volume; people can hear him laughing 5 offices away).
- Hides his ignorance by answering questions with buzz words, repeating what you just said, or just offering useless information (e.g. Where did you get this value from? “It says 8 meters.” Thanks, that totally answered the question…).
- Overly confident. Declared his calculations to be correct (2 years of college, 2 weeks interning), explaining “this calculation is kinda weird,” when our resident expert (30+ years experience) says he estimated something different — offering a quantifiable solution.

Summary: So, he’s mostly loud, but I think I just don’t like him.

Intern02 –
Pros:
+ Seems likeable.
+ Quiet.
Cons:
- Does not seem intelligent; slow — intellectually and when completing tasks. Spends days working on something only to find he has no idea what he’s doing. Now, I’ll grant you, that’s what interns do. But I explained the task on Day 0, came back each following day to ask if he was making progress or had any questions, re-explaining the steps at least once a day.

Day 3, he sends me his first attempt which includes almost every error I cited on Day 0 that would need to be changed or the results would come out wrong. It almost seemed like he was listening. Almost. His email included, “I am getting big discrepancies in between the two, but if I have done something wrong I can’t figure out where.”

After receiving comments, trying again, he returns a few hours later saying he didn’t understand Step 1 (how to read a graph). I guess at least he asked. So, I’ll add that as a pro:
+ Willing to ask questions, regardless of their reflection on him.

- Additional points against him for doing his parts wrong on our team project and submitting his sections of the report 3 days late though. I’m not a forgiving person.

Summary: Not annoying, but I just don’t like working with him.

Winner? “Winner.” I dunno. 01 seems like a bad listener, so even though he works, I don’t trust the results nor do I care to work with him to correct his work. 02 is consistently incorrect, so I can at least trust that I should do the task myself and can then do a better job correcting what he’s done. Ok, I’m surprised by this, but I’m voting for Intern02 because I am actually willing to work with him.

Alright, I’ve been spending a lot of time complaining about interns. Mostly because they frustrate me, but also because they annoy me.

I was thinking back to see if I’ve felt this way about all our interns and whether I’ve changed my minds about them after they came back to work full time for the company.

The first intern brought on full time after I started working (Chad2) took some convincing on my part. I didn’t work with him much, but his emails were often casual, including typos, grammatical mistakes, and just not very professional. Once I was able to get past the spelling, he was a pretty competent worker. So, I was forced to change my mind on him. He did have NewGirl as a pretty strong advocate though, which definitely helped.

The other intern that summer was rather unimpressive, but didn’t annoy me. I didn’t mind working with her and she seemed like she was trying.

The next summer, I did not like the intern. Another coworker and I were giving him tasking on the projects we were working on and he took to telling us he “didn’t feel like it.” Fail.

I didn’t work with last summer’s intern (Intern00) that much, but he was normal enough to socialize with. OtherBoss and I even invited him out to lunch with us — multiple times. It probably helped that the intern in my office was busy annoying me by mashing on his keyboard all day playing games or bikini shopping for his [not bikini body type] girlfriend.

Intern00 is back full time for us and I’ve had no problems working with him. The other new person who started a few weeks ago has also been working out really well. He’s definitely odd, but it entertains me that he annoys Intern01.

My department has really grown in the past few months. (We went from 14% women down to 7.6%!) I haven’t gotten around to making up nicknames for everyone, but I feel like I should make the effort.

So there were — Boss, Boss Jr, Skunknut, VTGuy, and BeardFacé.

New people — BreakDancer (who’s been in the dept a while… just hadn’t done anything to warrant a nickname. Though, I could go with CompetentGuy [minus the BoobLooking]), VTGuy2, TimeBurglar (stolen from TLD), ChairThief, and Intern00.

Huh. I just went back through my archives in search of a BoobLooker story. Apparently, I used to be much more professional and only blogged anonymous stories about work. Oh well.

But ok. I feel better now. Everyone has been named. Now I can start telling more work stories.

Also on the to do list — brainstorm ways to get the interns to stop annoying me so much.

So, it doesn’t help at all that the new intern (I’m going with Intern02) was one of my classmates the past 2 semesters. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time — he sent me his resume and I was only unimpressed with him at the time, so I forwarded it along. (Though, that’s definitely my fault. I need to stop forwarding resumes from people whose emails I want need to correct before forwarding. The last 2 have been duds. Cover letters just shouldn’t include things like, “Also, I can’t remember for sure, am I doing [this week's assignment]?”)

Little did I know how incorrect and counter-productive his work would turn out to be a few weeks later. I take a little solace (very little) in the fact that I didn’t actually recommend him. I said, “you probably shouldn’t ask me.” Which is to say, I didn’t actively advocate against him, but hell if that kind of recommendation helps.

But. I’m a professional, right? And he’s here to learn. So I had some work that needed to be done and a bunch of people too busy to do it. It was even interesting work (to me) — researching equipment for a ship: cranes, winches, rescue boats, etc.

I thought it would take a couple hours… A day and a half later, I take my first look at his results. The first 3 items I checked were off from what I expected by over 7 tons each — surprisingly low values.

After a little probing to find out what his sources were and what models/designs he was looking at, it turns out he was looking at completely different equipment, but “just scaled up.” Using what scaling factor? Your own engineering judgement? Uh, you know, math.

Continuing down the list of his bad data, I look closer at the cranes he cited. They’re drivable. You know, for land. Plus, it’s the wrong capacity. (It turns out he found a website that had a list of cranes for “33-150 mt.” Which he took to mean he should take the first and last cranes from that page and those would be for “33 mt and 150 mt, respectively.”) But wait, let’s go back. It’s got wheels on it. That’s not what we want for a ship.

Alright, so I resolved months ago to train some usefulness into my coworkers, as their incompetence was a reflection on me. So, Intern02 will learn something this summer. And if it ends up just being, “Duck when Enjanerd starts punching knowledge into me,” I’ll settle for that. But I hope it’s something work-related. For his sake.

VTGuy: There was a change to the weights.
Me: What weights?
VTGuy: The loads.
Me: Which loading condition?
VTGuy: Whichever one Boss Jr was working on. We updated a spreadsheet.

Me: VTGuy said you guys were working on a load condition and there was a change.
Boss Jr: Yeah, but I think it was minor. You should make a note to fold it into the next go-round.
Me: What condition is this for?
Boss Jr: The one you’re working on, but don’t worry about it now.
Me: I’m working on 3 different conditions. All defined by you.
Boss Jr: Oh, the one that VTGuy was working on.

Why won’t anyone offer me the information they intend for me to have??

These people are so useless.

I sent an email out earlier this week with instructions on how to add a coworker’s shared email folder in outlook:

[Instructions: Click here. Now click there.]

…

Let me know if these instructions need clarification. Otherwise, any other problems should go through ITGuy.

Resumeliar stops by a few hours later, “You know that email you sent out?”

Yes, the one email. This sounds promising.

“Yes.”

“Did you get that to work?”

“Yes.”

“VTguy and I couldn’t get it to work.”

“Did you follow the instructions?”

“Yeah, it added the mailbox, but we can’t see the folder.”

“Did you email IT?

“No… should I?”

“Yes.”

Two days later…

VTguy calls, “Did you get this Outlook thing to work?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t get it to work.”

“Did you talk to IT?”

“No. I guess I could do that. ResumeLiar is having trouble too.”

“I told ResumeLiar to go talk to IT when he asked me 2 days ago. Did he ask?”

VTGuy had me on speakerphone, so his officemate, ResumeLiar, heard the question, “Oh, I didn’t do that.”

“Talk to IT” *click*

I’m not quite sure how to address this without sounding ungrateful and greedy. And maybe it’s because I am being ungrateful and greedy. But.

I requested a mid-year review with Boss to see about getting a raise after earning my PE, working absurdly long hours because no one else was able to do this specific work, and basically having my job responsibilities change without being told.

It was a lengthy, awkward meeting. There was an airing of grievances — I don’t work enough hours; I didn’t catch a mistake that one of my coworkers made which never came to me for review. And it became clear to me that Boss didn’t actually know about 25% of the things I do (including automating 3 of my coworkers’ duties so they could be freed to do other work. What? Did he think they got really efficient all of a sudden? And didn’t he tell me to work with them..?).

So in the end, he said that he would go to upper management for me and recommend that I get a raise.

Now, I know the economy is bad. And I know I didn’t go to them with a specific numerical demand or offer in hand.

But I’m incredibly disappointed by the raise that I received and, honestly, a little insulted by it. I’m pretty sure my facial expression revealed my opinion of it because Boss did ask me if that was ok. And I hesitated, being unprepared to hear right then, and even more unprepared for something that wasn’t even on the radar in my expectation range.

This is the lowest raise I’ve received in 4 years.

I sound greedy now, don’t I?

I discussed with Boss at my review at the beginning of this year whether mid-year reviews/raises are an option. Specifically, with regard to getting my PE and Masters. He said yes. It’s not typical, but in exceptional cases like that, I should be compensated for my increased value to the company.

I don’t feel like they are compensating me a proportional amount to the increase in my value to them.

Now, I’m trying to see how, monetarily this is actually better than waiting until next spring and getting a larger raise. Because if I didn’t ask for anything now, it seems like my advances should make it worth more than a typical raise then. And this was, at best, typical.

And now my annual review cycle has been moved to this new date and I am not to expect a raise in the spring. This doesn’t add up for me.

I should also mention that when I walked into that meeting, his first issue was that I not have an expectation of doing this often. He doesn’t want me coming in every 6 months asking for another raise.

Trust me. I won’t.

LOTD: How much are you worth?

A few people have asked me about this quote since Friday night’s debate, so I thought I’d post it up.

“We tried to build a little ship called the Littoral Combat Ship that was supposed to cost $140 million, ended up costing $400 million, and we still haven’t done it.”

Got that out of a transcript. I didn’t catch the whole quote at the time because I was surprised by the number he cited. But, uhm, I thought we kind of did build that little ship.

Oh, what a fool I was to think a 10-hour day at the office was long. I discovered yesterday that there are people at the office at 6:30 am. Are these people crazy??

It’s one thing when I’m in Wisconsin and there’s nothing else to do… Or when I was out on trials and had no choice but to work 14-hour days (two 21-hour days!) because, well, I couldn’t get back to land. I signed up for a cushy desk job. I should have no expectation of putting in 2-6 hours of overtime every day.

I got roped into this meeting yesterday and I just wanted to tell them they were acting like children. Eighteen people there to make sure no one took away their toys. They can’t *all* get their way. And if they don’t start working together, no one is going to get to play. That’s just how it works!

P.S. I did not write the letter from the Republic of America. Just thought it was funny. :)

So… after clocking 10 hours at work today, I had a group meeting for class. And now I have about an hour of homework to finish up and review other people’s slides, along with emails tasking me with about another 4 hours of work that I’m expected to get done by tomorrow morning.

Seriously? When did I become an adult? I’m still surprised by this. Still.

Things still on to do list:
- finish laundry
- empty dishwasher (I have discovered that the “clean dishes” light turns off after a month. Yes, I’m that bad.)
- finish homework
- email group
- schedule time to work on my part of design to send to classmate
- get enough work done so I don’t go crazy tomorrow morning
- pick up prescription that I called to refill 3 days ago
- go to sleep
- stop blogging.

Some time next week, my weight will officially be recorded in history in a government document. Truly, I have made it in life.

I had a dream last night and I was reviewing my coworker’s work. And then I had to discuss my comments with our group VP. That was it. I wasted my precious sleep time working more.

I sat down at my desk to work and didn’t fall asleep, but lost about 10 minutes. Staring. At nothing. I think my brain is revolting against me.

I’m collaborating and getting along with coworkers. They were so nice to work with after some of the people I met a few weeks ago… and yet, something must have changed after all my rants. Is it reasonable to assume they’re not as incompetent as I thought they were? Have I successfully lowered my expectations to achievable levels? Am I getting dumber? Did I turn nice? The part that worries me is that I don’t even know which of these possibilities is more likely. I mean, it’s probably more likely that I go insane before I’m nice. But it’s not out of the realm of possibilities.

I was reading an agenda today that had an item extending from 23:30-24:30, then 24:30-25:00. And it took me at least 3 passes through reading those items to figure out why they looked wrong.

This is great publicity for this project, but I just think the headline sounds funny:

1) If you visit, even in the dead of summer, bring a jacket. It’s in the 60s today.

2) There are 3 things to do around here: 1. Tuesday night karaoke. 2. Thursday night (tonight!) wing night. 3. Saturday night karaoke.

3) Butter goes on everything. Hamburgers, sandwiches, bbq, salad… everything.

4) There are plenty of vegetables and, well, I won’t say “healthy,” but non-fried food options around here. Just not at the places Boss Jr took me to last week.

5) There are no Packers fans here. They’re all Favre fans. And now they’re Jets fans.

At the airport. Again.

Heading back up to Wisconsin. Apparently my boss is too important to allow him to leave the office, so instead of having him go up Mon-Wed and me on board Thurs-Fri, I’m going up now and will be on board Mon-Fri.

The two days home were good though. I got a lot of rest, had a nice date with Ian, did a big family shindig at my parents’ yesterday, and even got to catch up with some college friends for dim sum this morning.

I really wish my company had a designated person to make all our travel plans for us. I got my plane ticket Friday evening, I think I get the hotel room that was booked for my boss. I’m carpooling with another coworker from the airport and hopefully will be able to figure out how to get to the yard at 4am or whatever time I’m supposed to be there in the morning. Last I heard, there are no more rental cars available at the airport.

This week is going to be so exciting. Yeah, exciting. An adventure. That’s what this is…