All's not what it seems

Hey, ya really bustin' ma balls here!

There are 42 posts tagged: corporate cobblers

Anon admin
14 July 2023

Anyone who's suffered corporate IT for any length of time will be familiar with its vagaries, bestowed upon it by individuals who're too good for HR, but little else. Alongside the standard cheap hardware and guess the password requirements bullshit, we have the unnamed and uncontactable admin accounts.

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Pride comes before a fall
6 June 2023

Like Black Friday and trick or treat, Pride month—a whole freakin' month—is a cultural import from across the pond. But it hasn't gone unnoticed that corporate fawning over the rainbow mafia only extends to tolerant countries. Because support for oppressive minorities, or minorities with zealously oppressive allies,* only applies to those countries in which they're not themselves oppressed. Saudi Arabians, for example, don't have to accept this pandering bullshit. Natch.

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Phishing licence
8 March 2023

Phishing is a major security concern, no doubt about it, and it's one that troubles InstantlyForgettableNameCorp greatly. We're constantly reminded, as if we were attention-deficient toddlers, about the dangers of phishing attacks. IT security tries to trap us on occasion, by sending us test messages with naughty links, as if we didn't have anything better to do than play silly-bugger games. They even preface all external mail with a warning that gets in the way of scanning messages for prioritisation in the Outlook inbox.

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The safety dance
17 January 2023

It's that time of year again, when we keep HR's catatonic shitheads happy, by pointlessly measuring immeasurable achievements. Yes, it's time to self-assess our progress against our 2022 goals. For each one, we have to rate our performance on a scale from 0% to 150%.

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The end of a microera
20 September 2022

Organisational changes are afoot in InstantlyForgettableNameCorp, and my line micromanager is one of the casualties. With immediate effect…talk about brutal.

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Quietly quitting
30 August 2022

Sometimes it's reassuring to know that you're not alone in how you feel, and how you respond. So not alone, that there's actually a name for it. In this case, the name is quiet quitting: no longer going above-and-beyond at work, and doing the bare minimum to get by.

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Oh no, poor lamb
22 August 2022

In How workplace bullying went remote, Joanna York examines workplace bullying in the remote-work era on behalf of BBC Worklife (Hello Hybrid subdivision). But is she really discussing bullying, or simply hurt fee-fees, when she refers to unkind behaviour?

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Everything I imagined, and less
10 August 2022

My line micromanager is paying us a visit from the US. He's been itching to make this trip, pretty much since he joined the company eighteen months ago. I don't know why.

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The new office...portal
8 August 2022

It has come to pass that InstantlyForgettableNameCorp's new IT platform will be M$ 365. Or Office 365. Dunno, don't care. (shrug)

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Trad-Med man
27 July 2022

Since the 4th Edition of International Conference on Traditional Medicine, Ethnomedicine and Natural Therapies is expected to be such a raging success, Elena Claire is taking over from Linda Joseph to manage the fifth edition. At least I think that's what's happening. Both of them seem to be involved in similar conferences this year. But it's possible that internal communications at Scientific Meetings, or whatever, are as ineffective as those at InstantlyForgettableNameCorp.

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Time to leave
18 July 2022

As InstantlyForgettableNameCorp arises from the ashes of MegaCorpCH, it's moving its IT infrastructure to a new platform. I haven't been keeping abreast of the developments because I have no spare shits to give: what happens, happens. But one thing that pleases me greatly is that we are ditching Kronos, the user-unfriendly time management system that MegaCorpCH bought over a bloody good game of golf.

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Clarity for morons
7 July 2022

I've just received a request for clarification from someone at work who clearly didn't read the originating request thoroughly, otherwise she wouldn't have needed clarification. I hate spoon-feeding morons who're paid enough, but are too lazy to do their job properly. (grumpy)

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A spoonful of Sugar...is a spoonful too much
11 May 2022

British entrepreneur, and host of the BBC's rip-off of The Apprentice, Lord Sugar, has lambasted PwC's staff for taking Friday afternoons off over summer. The offer is valid as long as they have their work completed by lunchtime.

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Back to office
3 May 2022

My first day back in the office since April 2020. Two years since I was last here, and I'd like to say it's good to be back. But it really isn't.

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Open goal
24 March 2022

My line micromanager has shared his goals with his team, so that we can align ours with his. Whelmed, I am not.

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Are you trained?
1 March 2022

Not long after I joined the company, MegaCorpUSA introduced mandatory web-based training on business ethics, and other stuff that was too dull not to forget. The concepts that we were being trained on were so basic that, if you had even a modicum of common sense, you could pretty much wing it. So I did. The training itself was non-existent and a waste of time; this was simply a box-ticking exercise.* Anyhow, I just got on with it, raced through to the end, successfully completed without even having to think too much. Job done.

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A different parochial perspective
21 February 2022

The BBC has been moving some of its light programming out of London and into the regions. The most recent move, of Morning Live to Manchester, will offer a broader perspective on the whole of the UK, according to an ex-sportswoman-turned-daytime TV presenter. This is, of course, utter bollocks.

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Unlisted number
17 February 2022

Yesterday, I was met with an authentication error when attempting to access InstantlyForgettableNameCorp's time-management system. The login system is run on Microsoft Azure…you can see where this going, can't you? In order to reset my account, I had to enter a code sent to my mobile number, xx-xxxxx93. Except, I don't have a mobile with a number ending with 93. (confused)

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GOAAALLLLLLL
11 January 2022

Goal-setting season is upon us! The time of the year when HR's catatonic shitheads expect us to waste our precious allotted time on this planet, jumping through pointless hoops to please their brain-dead selves. And the same time of the year when I wish them a wretched new one.

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Pandemic posting
31 December 2021

The pandemic lockdowns have resulted in increased levels of shit on the interwebz. This is not least in part due to me posting more. Much more. But only in terms of quantity, not quality. Fortunately, no one reads this garbage, so no innocent brain cells have been harmed in the course of the fiasco.

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Tail wagging the dog
17 December 2021

We're having a problem at work with one of our vendors. Or, rather, InstantlyForgettableNameCorp's admin are having a problem with one of our vendors' admin. I can't pretend that I understand it, because I've been excluded from the discussions.

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MegaCorpCH no more
7 December 2021

Earlier this year, MegaCorpCH was sold. I can't remember the exact timeline, since it's lost in the mists of corporate lethargy. But, sometime in the summer, a committee of highly-paid, crack corporate nonentities announced that they'd decided on a new company name. It's a very clever name, derived from the Latin or Greek for something-or-other, and symbolising whatever-the-hell. Unfortunately, it's not particularly memorable or inspiring. But, at least it's home.

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A vacant lot
29 November 2021

End-of-year bullshit from the mouth-breathers in MegaCorpCH's HR department.

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When 'yes' means 'no'
19 November 2021

According to David Robson, for BBC Worklife, people are more likely to comply with requests for assistance, through fear of disagreement otherwise. All very psychological.

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Carded
6 September 2021

For want of anything better to do with her time, and the BBC licence payers' money, Adrienne Murray asks the burning question of the day: Has Covid killed off business cards for good?

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If you manage the micros, the macros will manage themselves
24 August 2021

When I first spoke with my current line manager, after he joined the company, he assured me that he's not a micromanager. If that's true, then he certainly demonstrates micromanaging tendencies. Is there anyone more pathetic and less inspiring than a man, or woman, with a tracking spreadsheet? I think it's a sign of insecurity, or not having enough real work to keep them gainfully occupied.

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Marco is a NSFW
18 August 2021

A colleague at work sent an internal email, requesting feedback on a particular vendor. I work in a multi-cultural, multi-national company, and I am at the upper end of the age spectrum. So I fully expect that different people have different points of view and personal standards. Nevertheless, I found the response from one of our newer, non-Anglo members of staff a little surprising; especially since it didn't even include a NSFW warning.

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Meet the new boss...
22 July 2021

MegaCorpCH has a new CEO. Yay! And this is only the fifth that we've had in the six years that I've been working here. (SMH)

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Secret password
20 May 2021

I finally got access to the LAN and Roomz. Except, not quite. Of course, the password for Roomz is not synchronised with the company's single sign-on, because that would make things too easy. Roomz requires a password to be set separately, with its own specific requirements.

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Corporate utopia
24 February 2021

Octopus Energy is a UK start-up selling green energy. The company is valued at £1.4bn, has 1,200 employees and more than 1.9 million UK customers, and is expanding into into other countries. Most importantly, its CEO, Greg Jackson, has no interest in HR or IT departments.

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Those who can, do
29 October 2020

For those who can't, a career in HR beckons.

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70 GOTO 10
7 September 2020

As part of its response to the China syndrome, MegaCorpCH has instituted remote working, as well as social distancing for those who have to go into the office. To comply with the latter, we are required to book office space using Roomz.

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I have a dream...
1 September 2020

…that one day I'll be LinkedOut.

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Time bandits
27 July 2020

Last year, MegaCorpCH changed its time recording system from SAP to Kronos. I'm not a fan of SAP, but all I can conclude, from my subsequent experience, is that the decision to move over to Kronos must've involved a bloody good game of golf, followed by a bloody good dinner, accompanied by copious amounts of a bloody good wine. Because, even in comparison to SAP's meagre user friendliness, Kronos is a sack of shit.

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Looking a gift horse in the mouth
18 December 2019

'Tis the season of glad tidings, and MegaCorpCH is in generous mood. My US colleagues have each received a $25 gift voucher, to dispose of as they wish.

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Safety in mind
5 December 2019

MegaCorpCH is committed to worker safety. This gives all of its employees a warm, fuzzy feeling, for it means that the man cares about us.

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Must. Drink. More. Koolade
25 October 2017

MegaCorpCH's Internal Communications department seems to think that employees are stupid. Or perhaps they just assume that we're as brain-dead as they are?

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The Dark Side
13 April 2013

Mondo sadness…I have purchased a Windoze computer! (sad)

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By jingo(ism)!
6 September 2012

MegaCorpUSA runs a weekly poll on the company intranet. It's trite and easily overlooked. But the most recent asks which nation will win the most medals at the paralympics. Usually these polls attract about 3000-5000 votes, so this one's at an early stage, but of 175 people we seem to have a distinctly deluded majority. Presumably these are night-shift workers, who're either tired or simply just not that bright.

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Should I become gay?*
17 August 2012

MegaCorpUSA, in an effort at inclusion, has set up a gay and lesbian and allies group, to spread awareness, if not interesting diseases. Apparently, the network exists for the positive advancement of gay and lesbian issues, and Their goal for this year is to establish themselves further…and increase the number of members. So I think they're asking people to become gay homosexual.

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Happy holidays from MegaCorpUSA
7 December 2011

MegaCorpUSA shares the office complex with a small subsidiary joint-venture company, for which Frank works. I was having lunch with Frank today, during which he bemoaned the Christmas gift that he, and all the other office staff, had received: an iPad.

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Square pegs, round holes
8 May 2004

Six Sigma (6σ) is a methodology for manufacturing process improvement. It's been successfully used to reduce failures, and thereby increase efficiency, which saves money. MegaCorpUSA likes saving money. So, duly, MegaCorpUSA introduced 6σ to the workplace.

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