Seriously, You Can't Get It There Overnight!

Okay, so I'm on vacation getting ready for Iceland (Ice, Ice Baby!) but let me share a little story from a few days ago.

On my last day before vacation (Monday) my temp replacement comes in. He's very competent and more than capable of doing my job (ut-oh...fear not he's going to Ohio next week). A member of the Bother Squad comes over and asks me if I can get something via FedEx to London overnight. I tell them no...like I have so many times before. Well, one of the BS went and did some research (emphasis on some). She comes back some time later and tells me that there's something called FedEx "Next Flight" and there's two options 1:30pm and 4:30pm. It ain't cheap. It starts at something like $240.

Now, I knew sorta something like this existed even though there's no option to do this online or with the FedEx software but I didn't know the details. (Hey, the mailroom's my job not my passion.)

Long story short, they tell me they'll have something ready for Tuesday to go by Next Flight hopefully by 1:30 but possibly 4:30. I inform them that I won't be here but Temp 2.0 will handle it...that and I encouraged them to send it Monday night by FedEx International so that it will get there by Wednesday.

So what happens? The usual: shit gets unnecessarily fucked up.

It turns out the Happy Cappy Investment Team is ineligible for Next Flight because of some transportation security guidelines or something like that. You have to apply for that status.

They should've just sent the package on Monday...

It's Not Me it's You

Do restraining orders work against vendors? This is something I might have to look into.

For over three months a certain office supply company (none you've ever heard of unless you work for them... and if you do run away!) has been trying to get me to order from them. I really wasn't interested but they did the old salesman show up at the office routine after I said I wasn't interested.

(Sidenote: I've started allowing these unsolicited visits ever since my DHL rep said he was going to take me to lunch which I interpreted as I will gladly stuff my face if you're picking up the tab and you can talk all you want while I order my third milkshake. I might need to rethink this idea, especially since I haven't received that free lunch. Alas, perhaps there are no free lunches.)

What could I do with that sad little puppy on my doorstep? I showed him a good time of course. Well, not really.

But I did get to look all important--look at me booking a conference room for my "business meeting"--and we "talked numbers" as the kids like to say. Well, not really.

First, Papular Paper Pusher asked me what my main concern was. Any economic students out there? Want to take a guess as to what I told him? I told him "lowest price combined with timely delivery." I don't think I coined that phrase but he thought it was worth writing down. He then gave me a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo, or malarkey if your prefer, that made me click my mental "sleep mode."

One of his big sells was that he could save me money on paper purchases. Great idea, we use paper everyday. Literally every day if you can believe it. And it's not like paper grows on trees. Well, not really.

I gave him the figure for a box of 10 reams of 24 lb. stock--hang on dear audience, we have to work through the minutia--and he told me he could save me money because I didn't need to use 24 lb., 20 lb. would do just fine for the copier. (I won't bore you with the reasons I order 24 lb. paper but there are reasons dammit! I will only point out that 20 lb. paper costs less than 24 lb. from Staples and any other vendor.)

That was the big sell? To get me to order a cheaper quality of paper. What's his next suggestion to give people foldy chairs instead of plush office chairs? (Okay, the office chairs are a bit lavish at $1,000 a pop but they weren't my choice.)

Still, nice guy that I am I printed out my spreadsheet of items that I regularly order. A week or two later I get an email from PPP explaining that I have a login to their website. I ignored it as I did all the other attempted follow-ups. I got caught on the phone once and so I agreed to check out the website.

Well, as it turned out I was in for quite a treat. It was like the Staples website except much harder to navigate with far less items to choose from. And here's the clincher: more expensive than Staples and an extra day to arrive.

Did he really think he was going to lure me with higher prices? All he had to do was go to the Staples website, see what they were charging and charge me the same rate. I could have worked around the other stuff. I'm good with ordering from the little guy. I'm no corporate lackey. I have the rap sheet to prove it. But at the end of the year I have to turn in a self-evaluation and one thing that always gets them all excited is when I can show them where I saved the company money. It factors into my bonus.

These year-end reviews are painful enough without me having to explain why I switched from Staples to a company that charges more money for the same items.

Still, because I am an atheistic saint I found two items that were something like a nickel cheaper on their website. I clicked on the link provided in the email and put an order in. Well, not really.

As it turns out my order didn't go through, though I didn't know it at the time. PPP called. I answered and told him that I put an order in hoping that would shut him up. (It didn't by the way.)

He calls me back later that day and explains that I ordered through the demo website as opposed to the regular website. Give me a break. This is the worst wooing I've ever seen. You're trying to get my business? If this were a date I'd be convinced I was being filmed by the Blind Date crew... or maybe even Hell Date.

Fast forward to the day before I left for Amsterdam [pause for the tears of longing]. The Temp is in my office. The phone rings.

The Temp: The phone's ringing.

Me: Yeah, I can hear it.

TT: Are you going to answer it?

Me: You see that code? That means it was transferred from reception, that means it's someone trying to sell me something. Not interested.

TT: Oh, okay.

So what do you think the The Temp did?

a) let the phone ring
b) turned off the ringer
c) hung up on PPP
d) answered the phone and told PPP to never call back
e) answered the phone, and said "Yes, he's right here. Hold on, I'll get him...It's for you."

Yes, sadly, the answer is e). Does the Temp have brain damage? I mean seriously, am I talking to Mr. Short-term Memory? Perhaps a pear-colored apple hit him on the head.

So I talk to PPP and tell him to call me the next day at 4pm knowing very well that I will be on my way to the airport, destination Amsterdam.

Fast forward to today. I get a phone call from some phone number I don't recognize. It's PPP on my cell! WTF? Leave me alone! (Unfortunately, I need to list my cell on my business card for a variety of reasons.) PPP called a few weeks back but his number came up as unlisted and I don't answer unlisted calls. I checked the message, erased it, and didn't think twice.

Today, however, I foolishly answered an unknown number and paid the price. He told me he would set up someone to call me to walk through the website. No, fix your website. It sucks. I'm web saavy. It's on my resume. I don't need to talk to someone who's going to talk to me like I'm feeble-minded--"Okay, do you see a blue 'E,' it should say 'Microsoft Explorer' underneath the 'E.' You want to click on that with your mouse."

If I'm on the phone I might as well put the order in over the phone--Temp style.

I told him I'm not interested and to stop calling me. I think that's the last I'll be hearing of PPP. Well, not really.

Return of the Temp!

So the Temp is back in my life...sorta.

I needed to call him for some info that he's been hoarding. Specifically, the password to his online account with one of our vendors.

This man never met a phone call he couldn't drag out past 20 minutes if you let him. He seems to thoroughly enjoy them. It gets to the point where telemarketers hang up on him.

He was so pleased with himself when he "informed" me that the Happy Cappy Investment team had its very own sales rep, like he had found the lost city of Atlantis. Yeah, you tend to get a your "very own rep" when you literally order tens of thousands of dollars of supplies from a company annually. I'm sure he called her up as soon as he got her number and bored her to death. My sincerest apologies to the rep.

I bring this up because while I was having the time of my life in Amsterdam (alas, it was only a month ago) the Temp was supposed to order desk fans for some of the traders who work late into the night. After a certain hour the building turns off the air and the floor can get pretty warm until the AC comes on again at 6am. Well, the Temp ordered the fans but they were backordered. By the time I got back the fans hadn't arrived. So of course he went to cancel them in the manner of a crazy person.

Here's what I, a sane person, would have done. I would have logged into my online account and canceled the order. Ta da! [No need to applaud.] In fact, that's what I do every time I cancel orders.

Shortly before I left for Europe I set up an temporary account for the Temp that had some restrictions on it. I won't bore you with the details. Let's get back to Crazy.

So the Temp's attempt to cancel the order over the the phone was a little tricky since he didn't have the order number, the company account number or the date of the order when he made the call. This man can't bring himself to throw away one sheet of paper yet he does not have this information in front of him. I don't get it.

In short he made a call that went something like this "I'm the Temp from the Happy Cappy Investment Team and I need to cancel an order of fans...No I don't have the order number...No I don't have the company account number...I don't remember the date...I'm the Temp from the Happy Cappy Investment Team and I need to cancel an order of fans..."

Needless to say, this was too painful to watch so I left my office. I came back 20 minutes later. He was still getting his phone groove on so I left again. The next attempt to enter my office finally found him wasting considerable energy on some other ridiculous endeavor. I then ordered the fans from another company which arrived a few days later. Traders rejoiced.

Skip to yesterday, more fans arrive. In fact, the exact amount I ordered but from the original company the Temp ordered from. I wish I could say that the Temp lied and never canceled the order. I could respect that. He's a temp. By the time anyone figures it out he'll be gone so, whatever. Sadly, he's not that smart. I fully believe that he really thought he canceled the order.

Being lazy and not doing your work doesn't take any time, so hats off to that. But spending all that time to do your job badly. I don't get it.

Long story short, I called up the Temp to get his password to his online account and now have to re-establish his account since it expired and then send back the fans.

This is all very annoying.

You Know Where You Can Stick It...

Good People,

There are few things I hate in this world more than faux organization. Some people are organized, some are not. Some people LIKE being organized, some do not. That's all peaches and cream. I get it. I can deal. But don't front like you're all organized and come at me with some nonsense. The Temp might be able to dazzle some higher ups by simply uttering the magical phrase "spreadsheet" but I know better. (Some suits get weak in the knees when they hear "Excel", big fucking whoop.) The Temp's spreadsheet is shit. I've axed most of his columns, added a couple, rearranged information in a way that is *gasp* useful and made this spreadsheet so efficient as to be unrecognizable from the original.

But my current grumble is not about the spreadsheet, so let's move on.

The Temp is out of my life, hopefully forever. But what did he leave in his wake? A mountain of post-its stuck to one another. This, his magnum opus. I don't know if he had some traumatic notebook-related accident as a child that prevents him from leaving information in an organized manner or what but this is just sticky chaos. Did he take my instructions to write down all relevant information and organize it in a cohesive manner literally?

Am I really supposed to make heads or tails of this? Is the top sticky the most important? The most recent? The attention-starved sticky? The supreme leader of all stickies? I feel like I'm looking for clues into the last days of Howard Hughes.

I would have preferred that he just didn't do anything in my absence than leave me his "notes." Back to square -1.

This Spreadsheet is Going to be the Death of Me

Don't get me wrong. I love a good spreadsheet as much as the next guy--possibly more--but fixing the Temp's worksheet is more work than creating this thing from scratch.

To give you a peek into my Monday morning pain this is one entry on the spreadsheet:

Coca-Cola/Diet/Soda/Can/12 oz.

Seriously, dog?

Now I could go on about how we ONLY order cans (the traders aren't allowed to have glass bottles in these rough economic times, no shoelaces either) or that cans are only available in one size from the distributor (12 oz. in case you're new to planet Earth and haven't yet seen a can of soda) or that most mammals are aware that Coke is a soda (the column is ALSO titled Soda) but that's technical mumbo jumbo that will simply bore you folks. Instead I ask, who refers to Diet Coke as Coca-Cola/Diet?

This is supposed to streamline the process of ordering and managing inventory?

When Life Gives You Lemons You Should, at the Very Least, Add Water and Sugar

Good people,

No matter what a certain spreadsheet might say, we at the Happy Cappy Investment Team do NOT serve lemon juice as a beverage to our employees or guests.

That is all.

Smarter than the Average Pear?

In looking over a spreadsheet created by the Temp I have learned that "pear" is a color of apple.

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect.

Have You Ever Been Kissed by a FedEx Man?

Me neither, but I did get a hug at least. (Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.)

The FedEx guy--aka Sweet Thunder--was so relieved to see me, I learned, because the Temp drove him nuts in my absence.

Now keep in mind, unless we start up a conversation, my interaction with Sweet Thunder is less than three minutes a day. And yet this brief exchange with the Temp over two weeks was traumatic enough that Sweet Thunder needed to embrace me upon sight.

What did the Temp do to this poor man?

Guess Who's Back. Back Again...

So won't the the real office manager please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

After being the office manager at my hedge fund for the last year--which we will call The Happy Cappy Investment Team for the purposes of this blog--I finally took a vacation. I spent two weeks traveling around Europe, by which I mean I occasionally left Amsterdam for a few hours here and there.

A couple of days before I was set to return I got an email on my work-issued crackberry. It informed me of two things:
1) that my temp replacement would be staying on one more week
2) that my office was being turned into a men's bathroom

At the time I was in an Amsterdam coffee shop. I read the email, turned to the bartender and complimented him on the quality of his product.

The next morning I awoke and checked the 'berry. Apparently, I had read the email correctly. (Who saw that coming?)

First, a word on turning my den of privacy into a crapper. My office is located all of 20 feet from the men's bathroom. I have no idea why this company is going to initiate this expensive, lengthy, loud, filthy process to build another men's bathroom only spitting distance from the current one. But I promise you this, with Zeus as my witness, I will get to the bottom of this mystery and we will have a hearty, if forced, laugh as the end credits roll.

Second, I must admit I am somewhat fascinated to watch someone else do my job. Who wouldn't love to see how someone else would do their job? People should definitely add this to their list of "Things to Do Before I Die": #96. Watch someone else do my job.

It should make for a fucking delightful anthropological experiment, though I must confess I am a tad nervous. Boss of the Boss aka Stone Cold Killer--one of the villains you will come to know and hopefully despise as my story unfolds daily--hates me. When I heard there was going to be a temp to replace me during my vacation I kept hearing that little voice in the back of my head (the non-killing-spree voice) saying "there is no job waiting for you when you come back."

A day before I had left for Europe I met and trained my replacement. I soon discovered that while he can probably do an adequate job filling in for me, in no way is he qualified to replace me. At the time I thought a "boo-yah!" was called for, even though this is not a phrase I ever use in conversation.

Fast forward, 2+ weeks. When I learned that he was staying on another week that voice came back. So we will see how this week goes.

Let the great experiment begin.