Ho sempre lavorato nei cantieri fino a circa 10 anni fa. Ora sono passato a un livello in cui mi occupo del personale d’ufficio e devo indirizzarlo un po’ su certe cose. Ho sempre pensato che il personale dell’ufficio facesse cose da ragazzini come programmare cose informatiche strategiche e negoziare accordi con i fornitori cinesi.
Due volte nell’ultimo anno qualcuno ha tirato fuori un foglio di calcolo XL e si è vantato di averlo fatto da solo, uno dei fogli di calcolo era stato modificato in modo che i lavori ad alta priorità fossero in blu e quelli a bassa priorità fossero in giallo e l’altro foglio di calcolo conteneva solo prefissi e indirizzi di siti che visitiamo in una determinata regione di lavori. Mi stavano spiegando queste cose come se fossero un punto di riferimento del settore, cambiando fogli di calcolo e facendomi sapere che i capi non si rendono conto di quanto talento abbiano.
State semplicemente inserendo dati da uno script? Ci sono persone in questo edificio di uffici da 20 anni, ho sentito uno di loro guardare un rapporto di lavoro e chiedermi cosa fosse un booler perché uno dei rapporti di lavoro degli idraulici diceva che gli elettrodi della scintilla sul booler erano cambiati (probabilmente l’ha scritto sul telefono con le mani bagnate) non aveva chiamato il poliziotto dopo 20 anni nel settore edile facendo questo stesso lavoro per capire che booler probabilmente significava caldaia.
https://i.redd.it/8dl3zohfy82h1.jpeg
di Theelfsmother
32 commenti
To quote Margin Call: “Speak to me as if talking to a small child or a golden retriever. It wasn’t brains that got me here, I assure you”.
No thinking allowed in the office. I’ve gotten sick of upper management not having cop on and the only thing that actually makes a difference is simply letting their mistakes or fuck ups happen. My dad once said to me after a particularly rough day that there’s “only so much you can do to protect people from their own ignorance. Sometimes you have to let them step in shite to learn why not to”
There will be a mix of stupid/normal/smart people in an office. Same as on site.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3s&v=RYGYENxPNC4&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3s&v=RYGYENxPNC4&feature=youtu.be)
You’ve likely overestimated them and well underestimated yourself.
Most people are just ploding along. Few have been somewhere years and do next to sweet fuck all while playing political games.
Lots places people just do the bare minimum as you’ll get zero reward for innovation. It’s rare to be in a place that rewards that’s tbh.
Builders will say shite like this and then argue that its simply not possible to set an arrival time and follow up on it
“whizz kid stuff like programming strategic computer stuff”
Its not 1980’s mate, maybe its you that should cop on
Is it just me that’s impressed by the Excel colour coding?
You called it an xl spreadsheet.
Is that opposed to an m or l sized spreadsheet?
Why did you swap the Y and Z keys?
Think you’ll find a booler on an XL spreadsheet
On these building sites you worked on, who was it that designed the buildings, brought them through the planning process, costed the job, procured the materials, programmed the job, ensured services were put in place, raised the finance to build it etc etc
etc
Not much. Innovation and rocking the boat are not encouraged. The next level up don’t want you showing them up!
Funny to look at a keyboard that laid out differently.
Why are there so many con artists in the building trade?
Life has many mysteries, I suppose.
It sounds less like the people in your office are especially dumb and more like you were told by someone when you were much younger that *you* weren’t particularly smart and internalised it.
Then when you realised your level, instead of it clicking that you were pretty smart, you just assumed that people you had been told were smarter than you must be doing whizz kid stuff you couldn’t possibly understand, when in fact they were doing the same dumbass shit as everyone else.
It’s like a weird external imposter syndrome.
Yeah too much thinking. “Theres no such thing as stupid questions”, is the biggest lie ever told.
Work “in an office” can cover anything from basic data entry to keeping everyone organized and everything running smoothly to PhD level analysis, so your question isn’t specific enough for an actual answer.
But if they’re showing you a spreadsheet they did that shows prioritization, it sounds like your organization has trouble with the “keeping everything organized and running smoothly” side of things and they’re showing you the tool they built to assist prioritization and improve that.
Also, an experienced person knows that it’s better to ask and confirm basic definitions than assume you know and end up with an ongoing cockup because someone meant something else.
And basic data entry is necessary for things like getting orders in, having a site to go to, having the appropriate inventory for the job, and getting paid.
Yes, every person working in an office is so mind numbingly void of critical thinking and logic that some higher power needed YOU, the main character, to step in and show how intellectually better you are than all of them because you saw a spreadsheet and someone made a mistake. Congratulations, you are now the smartest person to ever step foot in an office.
“I always thought office staff were doing whizz kid stuff like programming strategic computer stuff and negotiating deals with Chinese suppliers”
Some do, yes. You’re not especially likely to encounter them working in an admin job for a builders’ merchant
From my experience in data entry:
When I first got trained into my role most if not all pf the training was date entry and what to put where. Did ot make the job easy…yes but when issues arise you have no knowledge or experience of what rxactly to do to fix the issue because we were tokd what to input but not WHY AND WHAT these inputs do within the system.
So essentially yes, there was very little actual thinking involved in the job when it came to inputting data and it took months of trying to learn and ask questions so I could understand the actual system and what it was we were doing when working accounts.
This kind of thing happens daily in my profession.
I work in supply chain technology as an analyst.
This morning we had a Priority 1 issue raised that a critical order was not possible to deliver on the system and this would cause major issues with a production run if it didn’t get sorted today.
I spent two seconds looking at the order and noticed they had cancelled it accidentally so the system was obviously not going to let them deliver a canceled order. An entire executive sales team with combined 50+ years of “experience” couldn’t figure this out.
While booler probably meant boiler, why make an assumption when it comes to electrics? For all they know a booler could be an important electrical component they hadn’t heard of ? (I know its not like but still, id encourage asking stupid questions rather than making stupid mistakes)
Booooooomers
“ xl spreadsheet “
You’re assuming you’re much better?
This appears to be a throw the bomb and run away type of posts.
I think this is more of a you problem. Starting with you not knowing how most office admin gets done and who by.
I’ve worked in Software Engineering and IT for over 20 years.
Everyone thinks they’re delivering nuclear reactor / moon landing level code. Everyone thinks they’re indispensable, or that their mate is, and that they’re all holding the whole company together.
This is not the reality. Sometimes it takes longer to solve problems when key people leave, but I’ve never seen anything fatal. You could lose a customer or two if you’re not careful, but it generally just makes people busy for a while.
There’s incredible hubris in the working world.
Thank god you’re here OP, will you man the fort whilst I go and dribble onto my keyboard? Good man yourself.
I too need a booler
I’m early 20s and the sad thing is these impressive xl sheets can now be done in 10 minutes with a bit of cop on and AI. At one point they were impressive and helped out loads, now anyone can make them in no time
That keyboard upsets me. And yes, offices are often full of people who think they are far more innovative and valuable than they actually are. It doesn’t help that the bar is often so low that any initiative is seen as groundbreaking.
That’s how office work is. It’s like this weird ritual where everyone is trying to show their feathers because a manager might look at them, say you seem competent, and pay them more or give them a better title.
Honestly bragging about a spreadsheet is nothing. I work with people who brag about sending an email 🤷.