I Don't Know, and I Don't Care

Various musings on random things at work / in the office ....

How is it that my work laptop can be plugged in all day and yet only have 95% power – shouldn’t it be 100%?

Before moving to our new office building, we were able to take a tour of a sample floor and vote on office furniture samples. In this tour, it was said that we would not have trash bins and that instead, we would have to take our trash to common trash bins in the copy rooms – thus, reducing the amount of trash and the cost of removing it. Fine. I’m all for saving the environment and reducing costs. But, when we moved in to the building, low and behold, we had trash bins. Yippee!! They were smaller than the old office and not emptied every day, so I figure a compromise was made (or unions chimed in). Then, after 2-3 months, one day our individual bins were gone. Poof. Magic. Instead, we have this little brown bag (imagine 1/3 the size of the brown lunch bag you carried to school) in this plastic thing that hooks on to the half partitions between desks. Of course, the desk is deep enough and the partition far enough away that my arm cannot reach. And the bag is ludicrously small. So, instead, I just bring in small brown bags (like the ones from Starbucks) and use that all week. Fine. We’ve adapted. We all have less trash. But now I really do not understand this ... two weeks ago someone started coming by to empty the brown bag in the little plastic thing and replace it with a new little brown bag. And the person came again last week. So doesn’t that defeat some of the purpose of cost savings?

Two weeks ago, we got an email to indicate which 2011 calendar/planner we wanted – and we had to have our choice submitted by 10 September. Cripes. Then again, I’ve already planned my Christmas holidays, so 2011 isn’t that far off.

You know it’s not good when the building maintenance guy bugs out his eyes, scratches his chin, and says ‘wow’. (When looking at a cracked tile under the cheap carpeting on the floor of our new (new in 2009) building.)

Why is the cleaning guy trying to figure out why the copy machine has a blinking red light? This is the same cleaning guy who completely disorganizes your desk when ‘cleaning’ it – meaning he beats the dust rag on top of all your stuff, picks up papers and ‘shakes’ the dust off (usually shaking out papers), moving around your keyboard etc. ! And this is the same guy who using the same swatting technique when cleaning the tables in the conference rooms, thus hitting the telephone buttons and turning them on so then you hear music on hold after a while.

And speaking of conference rooms and cost savings ... in our brand.new.building, we still have flip charts in the conference rooms. Yes, the giant tableau of paper. No white board. No smart white board. And the video conference rooms are set up so the screen is at the ‘head of the table’ – so everyone sitting at the table is facing each other, but not the screen. But, to face the screen, and thus the participants in another location, you have to turn and then you really cannot write notes on your paper on the table. I think this is a result of one of the two companies pre-merger (not mine) who was government-run, France focused, and didn’t even have conference call capable phones in the old building, let alone video!

Oh, and last point, speaking of conference rooms ... I asked a PA to arrange a series of meetings for us to discuss current operations, finance, etc. The meeting attendees number about 20, but I expect 10-15 to show up. The PA replied to my email asking if I would need meeting rooms reserved for the meetings. Seriously? Isn’t that a given, or am I just expecting too much?