Strike Two
A few more months passed with me working for The Beard and everyday is a challenge. This pinhead and I are clashing heads on almost everything, and one particular day turned out to be no exception. I was informed that we had an order for 20 or so "special handling" instruments which were a challenge to work on because they are always something the engineers come up with on the fly to accommodate a customer's special needs. All 20 boxes needed to be in shipping by Friday morning or it was no deal and today was Wednesday afternoon. It turns out The Beard sat on this info for the previous week and a half and didn't communicate this to his dayshift lead tech who in turn did not stress it to the dayshift technicians. They were all busy doing unrelated work for The Beard like metrics, BSOF, or their own individual development plans.
I felt a real urgency now to get all 20 boxes out that night and I really didn't want to put any pressure on my sure-handed tester to stay late with me because I knew he had to get up early to go to school. So Shoelaces and I both agreed to stay until every one of those instruments were troubleshot, tested, and put into Button-Up. We finally finished by 6am that morning and I fired out an email to portent management types informing them that we would meet our deadline. Then Shoelaces and I went out to a well deserved breakfast at Denny's. I finally got home around 8am Thursday morning and I remembered that The Beard didn't like it when I missed his 12:30pm meetings on Thursdays, but damn I was tired. Somehow I managed to wake up at noon and decided that I would make his meeting a little late but, I'd be there nonetheless.
When I arrived at work The Beard was the first one to see me and he gives me that stupid laugh he's got, it sounds like a choking victim trying to dislodge a chunk of unchewed meat from his throat, and in between HUHS he tells me, "I didn't expect you to make it in for this meeting, besides I called it off anyway." Sigh. I should have expected that and I guess deep down I did. What really got me about it this day was he didn't even say "Good job" or "Thanks you really saved my bacon on that one." I wasn't expecting a big party or a lot of adulation just a simple thanks would have been nice, but what I got was this Santa Claus looking reject laughing in my face yet again.
Later on that day as I got to my desk I began reading my email when I noticed a message had just come to me. It was from a high level manager thanking us for doing such a tremendous job on short notice and that made me feel pretty good. Well, as I read that The Beard must have been reading it too because as soon as I closed it he walked over and told me he wanted to thank Shoelaces and I for working so hard on this and making the order on time. I thought to myself "Too late jackass that's strike two," but instead I said, "Oh no problem just doing my job" and I went about my business.
I felt a real urgency now to get all 20 boxes out that night and I really didn't want to put any pressure on my sure-handed tester to stay late with me because I knew he had to get up early to go to school. So Shoelaces and I both agreed to stay until every one of those instruments were troubleshot, tested, and put into Button-Up. We finally finished by 6am that morning and I fired out an email to portent management types informing them that we would meet our deadline. Then Shoelaces and I went out to a well deserved breakfast at Denny's. I finally got home around 8am Thursday morning and I remembered that The Beard didn't like it when I missed his 12:30pm meetings on Thursdays, but damn I was tired. Somehow I managed to wake up at noon and decided that I would make his meeting a little late but, I'd be there nonetheless.
When I arrived at work The Beard was the first one to see me and he gives me that stupid laugh he's got, it sounds like a choking victim trying to dislodge a chunk of unchewed meat from his throat, and in between HUHS he tells me, "I didn't expect you to make it in for this meeting, besides I called it off anyway." Sigh. I should have expected that and I guess deep down I did. What really got me about it this day was he didn't even say "Good job" or "Thanks you really saved my bacon on that one." I wasn't expecting a big party or a lot of adulation just a simple thanks would have been nice, but what I got was this Santa Claus looking reject laughing in my face yet again.
Later on that day as I got to my desk I began reading my email when I noticed a message had just come to me. It was from a high level manager thanking us for doing such a tremendous job on short notice and that made me feel pretty good. Well, as I read that The Beard must have been reading it too because as soon as I closed it he walked over and told me he wanted to thank Shoelaces and I for working so hard on this and making the order on time. I thought to myself "Too late jackass that's strike two," but instead I said, "Oh no problem just doing my job" and I went about my business.
posted by factory_peasant at 9:09 AM
2 Comments:
To me this incident typified the beards personality. On the surface this story may just make him appear to be a rude unsocialble fool, but putting it together with everything he has every said or done I got a different picture. It seems like he was angry or did not understand why he was banished to training department for all those years and he sat in there stewing all that time vowing to make his return almost like it was someone elses fault. Now he would rule with an iron fist and take credit for any productivity that came from the line. I some times think he resented me for sending out that message carbon copied to managers above him hoping to take the credit for getting the products out, what he doesn't understand is that I didn't send it out hoping to get credit or kudos, but to inform everyone involved not to worry we had made shipment. I don't mind making my managers look good by working hard, but damn share the respect and courtesy do not try to make us work diligently by instilling fear in to the employees. After all isn't that one of the virtues Bill and Dave's was built on?
The Beard took credit for a lot of things in meetings that he had no idea were even occuring until someone came to him and said "Hey, we fixed this problem xxxxx."
He'd go straight to WP's desk and say "Hey, I just got done correcting this situation regarding xxxx."
That forced the people doing the work to avoid letting The Beard know directly, and just emailing those around him.
I saw it many times with my own eyes. Hell, it probably happened to me once or twice before I figured out how to play.
And training. Pfft.
The Beard couldn't get a signal on an O'scope if it didn't have a damn 'Autoscale' button. How could he try to explain WTF an S-Parameter is. Him in the training department was his last save.
Remember who put him there? That person took WFM right after....The position was the last save job of many for The Beard.
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