Now for the downside of having two bosses that hate each other.
Monday: AJ called us together for the morning meeting and said he'd decided over the weekend to implement a "paper-saving" policy. We all have to do double-sided copies of anything from now on as copying onto one side only wastes paper. Donna said what if we only have one side? AJ said I expect you to use your judgement on that one, Donna, but that blank side must not be wasted.
Amy only had one side to copy in one file so she spent a half hour re-copying all the existing sheets to fit.
Guru Bob called me up to ask me why nobody was using passwords, and I was to set it up the same as Head Office so everybody had to use passwords to get into the system. I said everybody's got a password - it just doesn't change because they'd forget it if it did. He said right, make sure everybody changes their passwords and put them on a five day turnaround. I said what? He said OK, every ten days then.
I went around and told everybody the password system's changed and we all have to update our passwords. I also said there'll be prompts come up from now on and when they do you all have to change your password again. Amy said why, but I didn't know if I should tell her it's because Head Office IT are mad at some of the things AJ said to Guru Bob last Thursday. James guessed though.
I set the password section up as an alphanumeric field of five or more characters, told everyone to use something they'd remember that mustn't be obvious or written down, then stood over everybody and helped them change their main password. Once that was done I went in and changed everyboy's email passwords so they matched.
The main problem was with Amy. I told her it must be five or more and she couldn't think of anything, so I said how about using your husband's name? She said oh yes, it's 'Paul'. I said OK then, how about your son's? She said well, that's 'Paul' too. I convinced her it was OK to use 'donna' as she sits next to her and she's not likely to forget it - or misspell it - so we changed it to that. Then she got up and went over to Donna, and said is that OK to use your name as my password, Donna? Donna said oh yes.
We changed it again to 'leeann', and I told Amy it was all right and she didn't have to ask LeeAnn if it was all right.
Tuesday: We all got our new name badges this morning - they were all included and all spelled right. James said I see yours is right too, so I said well how can you get two letters wrong?
Mike called me up to say his laptop had locked him out with an invalid password. I talked him through it again, and spelled out 'o', 'f', 'f', 'i', 'c', 'e' so it'd go in right. He said that's unlocked it thanks, and hung up. He was only there with that customer for the next hour and then he went to another customer, so I had to do it again when he called up from there too. He asked me to fix it when he came in for the afternoon, so we went through the log in procedure again. I guess I'll have to talk him through it tomorrow even though he said he'd got it now, as I'm sure he didn't.
Wednesday: The big printer wasn't working after the lunchbreak again. Walked over, pulled Mike's mobile charger, told him that was it and I was telling LeeAnn. He said no don't, I forgot, so I gave in and just plugged the printer back in. He told AJ he's still having trouble with his password, but I know that's mainly because he keeps typing in his old one.
Amy came over and said is it still OK to use 'leeann' as my password? and I said oh yes. She said only I feel so guilty she doesn't know, and can't I use my husband's name instead? I said no, because 'Paul' is only four letters and you must have five. She said no, that's all right, you see I was talking to him last night while we were waiting for the news to come on, and I suddenly remembered that his name's not 'Paul' - it's 'Peter'.
I changed her password to 'peter'.
This double-sided copying is a real pain. The Packers missed a shipment today because the loading list was on the back of another sheet and they didn't see it until the carrier had gone. I said it's not your fault, and the Head Packer said I know - it's that moron AJ.
Thursday: I've started doing the same thing as LeeAnn now, and copying each sheet onto it's own back.
Guru Bob called me up and said he was sending down three new patches and I had to close down all the PCs and the servers and fit them immediately I got them - they should be with me at nine next Monday morning. He said how many of your machines are still running Lotus because they should all have MS office on now. I said they all are still, but everybody's using MS and most things have been converted now. He said fine, take Lotus off everyone's - now. I said there's still some to convert, but he said well, if it hasn't been converted yet they obviously don't want it - you can keep Lotus on yours but take it off everyone else. He then said how's the email usage going and when I said it isn't he laughed and said OK, I'll send some people over to show you what to do and then you'll have to run email and computer literacy tests on everyone next week.
I have a suspicion all this is aimed at AJ because of last Thursday, but it looks like I'm going to suffer too.
I said OK, but what happens if anyone fails the computer literacy test? and he said that's OK as long as it's not a manager. If it's anyone else you'll have to make sure they pass, but if it's a manager you'll have to refer him here to Head Office for remedial training. So it is aimed at AJ.
He said don't tell people until Monday, we don't want to spoil their weekend, do we? I said we don't? so he said no, they might practise over the weekend if they know it's coming. He's definately out to get AJ.
I decided not to tell the others because I didn't want to deal with them making enough noise so AJ found out too. I'll wait and tell them Monday.
Friday: AJ said at the morning meeting we're all using less paper but more photocopier toner, so we're all to copy only essential things from now on. I said it's possible the photocopier is maybe using more toner because it's hot, and double-sided paper gets it hotter because it goes through twice - maybe, I'm not sure. He said yes that's what I thought it was - everybody use only single-sided copying from now on to keep the photocopier cooler.
James followed me back in my office and said did you just lie to AJ? I said no, I said 'maybe'. He said oh, OK. Then he said about the password situation - how long is this going to go on? I said I don't know, maybe until Guru Bob forgets what AJ said. James sighed and said so that's a long time, then. I decided to take the risk and tell him a little, so I said that's not all - he told me there's some patches coming on Monday and that means I'll have to shut off the servers, and I'm going to be removing Lotus from everybody's machine soon too. James said yes, he is annoyed, isn't he.
I went in to AJ's office and told him I'd had instructions from Head Office to remove Lotus from everybody's PC as soon as possible, because we all should be using MS Office from now on. He said are you sure? I said yes, I'm sure so he said OK, ask me this afternoon. He came around to check on everybody just before he went to the afternoon meeting at Head Office, so I reminded him about removing Lotus from everybody's PC. He said oh OK, go ahead - but don't stop anybody working. I took it off LeeAnn's first, because she goes down to annoy the Packers first thing Friday afternoons, and then took it off James' and Fiona's when they stopped to talk. I went in and did AJ's and Andy's, then got Donna's when she went down to the file room. Amy said go on, do mine too - so I did while she got us both a coffee. I still have to do Mike's, but I can leave that running Monday while we're in the morning staff meeting.
I told them all that there'd be work done on the servers on Monday so there'd be times the PCs would have to be switched off. They all moaned about it, but AJ wasn't there to hear so that's OK.
read 01/05/07-11 or read 01/05/21-25 