My actual job, how I spend my days, is a blast. Despite their initial concerns that I was over-qualified or whatever and that I'd get bored...I love it. All I've heard is what a bang up job I've been doing...more evidence of my embarrassing, slobbering love for what I do.
Well we can't have that....
Evidently I'm supposed to be filling out a weekly pre-report. A report that lists all the stops I'll be making the next week. Then on the following Friday, I amend that report to show what I actually did and do the next weeks pre-report.
Understand that I only have the most general control over where I'm going. I make arrangements to ride with sales reps...I go where they go. That means that I have to request a list of all the stops we'll be making...so I can fill out my weekly pre-report.
"Well ________ didn't have any problem getting the reps to do it."
Good point. Why don't I go ask him how he did it? Only I can't....because he QUIT.
As it turns out, despite the procedural proficiency of the fella before me...the reps don't seem to know the drill. When I requested a list of stops from the fella I'll be riding with on Tuesday...he sent me a list of ten place names. No address, no phone number...not even a city name.
That's an issue because I'm not simply making a list of where I'll be stopping. I have to enter each stop into a piece of software that they got on the black market when the Soviet Union collapsed. You can't enter anything without an address and a phone number.
I spent an hour on Friday afternoon looking up addresses and phone numbers...for places I WILL BE IN ON TUESDAY. An hour of the most precious and finite resource in the Universe...looking for something that I don't need until Friday and which will be right in front of my face on Tuesday.
Of course it's no surprise that the rep doesn't know the procedure. Why would he considering that the number of folks I've ridden with who have even the foggiest ******* of who _______ is could be counted on one hand. I guess he was too busy filing out paper work to get out and do his job. Maybe I could do like the fella before him and just make it all up and go play golf.
At this point you may be asking yourself...and you would be right to...how did they know he was just making it up? After all he wrote it down, entered into The Software...therefore it must have happened. The Software doesn't lie.
Heretical as it may sound, it is possible to use The Software as a tool for lying. They get reports everyday on what product is and isn't moving. Cases, numbers...M-O-N-E-Y..money. People who love to fill out reports...they're the same people that can't be shut up during meetings...are usually people that don't do any actual work.
Every office, every job, has it's stupidities. First thing Monday morning I have to go pick up some product. It takes these jokers two hours to get my samples together...even though the request was made three days in advance. That's what it takes to get the product though...product I sell so I can make them money and they can pay me. It's stupid but it's necessary if we want the samples.
I've done things that were even less necessary than these pre-reports..imaginary things. During basic training when the Drill Sergeants would get a case of the red-*** they'd march us to a freshly mowed clearing and tell us to pick daisies. Of course, I had signed on for that...singed on to have my will subsumed.
This isn't the Army...we don't have that kinda deal. This is stupid and unnecessary...it's a leash. It's a cavalier attitude toward my time and efforts and it's got me on the verge of a depersonalizing rage.
I guess I'll just have to take the place over.
Here comes the spelling Nazi...Check the title, EKIR - it's "daisies" and not "dasies" (which, amazingly enough, you got correct in the body).
ReplyDeleteI (almost) feel your agony. Whoever sold The Softward to your company must've visited my university next. Administrators? Bureaucrats? Bean-counters? Who needs'em, man, who needs'em? More **********ed work for me so that they can justify their ********** paycheck!!!
It's fixed...fixed...now it can be read and not frighten certain people who don't like to be reminded that words are imperfect representations of thought to start with...the best we could do.
ReplyDeleteI found yer blanket Linus.
This crap is like the Borg...it is the Borg.
There's a book by John Rawls, who I believe died recently (not real recently, perhaps within last decade), which attempted to offer a basis for moral action that suggested we should build an ethical framework for living upon the notion that we imagine ourselves from behind "a veil of ignorance" - absent from considerations such as income and status - from which we should chose guidance to inform the manner by which we should all live. Several critics pointed out that such an attempt to get beyond our "self interest" was not only naive, but unrealistic. But all Rawls was doing was rehashing the proverb: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". The critics confused self-interest with selfishness and the idea that you could imagine a better world with naive utopianism. Ideals are something you aim for; they are not a fixed target; they move with time and experience. They are "a movement together with a rest".
ReplyDeleteSo why do I mention this? After the basics are met for survival: a job is a just f**king job - a means to an end - once you get past that, shouldn't we be all having fun? Bread and roses - not as a mandate but an opportunity? No scope beyond work to live and you might as well clock off permanently.
The allusion to "movement" and "rest" comes from the Gospel of Thomas (Dead Sea Scrolls):
ReplyDeleteIf they ask you: "What is the sign of our Father in you?, say to them: "It is a movement and a rest."
That is the problem here...I would go even further and say a job should be avoided to the extent that it is possible.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I love my job is because it isn't one...or wasn't until about 2:30 yesterday when I was asked to flush and hour of my life down the toilet.
You are in friendly company for this philosophy of labour...at least with the last two commentors...I know that for a fact.
Damn the man!
ReplyDeleteHe has been...several times in the last few days.
ReplyDeleteI'm back out on the road now...doing my job...breathing again.
How bout an example of wasted time today that wasn't pointless.
ReplyDeleteI spent and hour sitting on milk crate behind a curb store this afternoon while the rep made a series of phone calls that didn't have anything to do with my products.
I can live with that...he was handling his business and I'm riding with him. Ultimately there was a point.