Work Rant

I hate my job.

I say that a lot eh?

Y’know, really though, my job isn’t that horrible, the job itself is really very simple. The problem is that we’re using technology that is WAY outdated for the Electronic Manuals my group maintains. I am the keeper of the Electronic Phone directory and it can only be updated monthly because the files have to be shipped out to our remote employee’s via e-mail and they have to install it themselves and whatnot. It’s a pain in the ass if it goes out too often and it tends to generate phone calls when people screw it up. Our group has been trying and trying for a long time now to get permission to put it on the Internet or in Lotus Notes, or both. This would solve many problems by being able to be updated on a daily basis!! The remote employee’s would be able to get it much easier through a process they already use or they could view it on the web. You see the biggest problem I have is that people will sometimes submit to me, crappy information, a wrong title, a named that spelled incorrectly, a transposed telephone number or extension. This gets put into the directory then someone calls me and says “My information is wrong” I tell them I’ll fix it in a month at the next release and they sigh or get shitty. OR, and I’ve had this happen. Someone contacts me saying that they’ve tried calling Joe Blow at Such and such number and it turns out that the number belongs to a very frustrated young woman who is terribly annoyed at getting all these calls for Joe Blow who she’s never heard of. I can’t fix the problem for a month so the poor young woman is bombarded with telephone calls for Joe Blow for another whole month. *sigh* This is very frustrating for everyone involved.

So why can’t we just change the technology? In short, IS won’t let us do what we want to do. My boss goes through meeting after meeting nixing idea after idea because dammit, we know what we need to use and the shit IS keeps offering us is crap and doesn’t suit our needs. We’ve settled on a content management program but further discussion has told us that once again, this technology doesn’t do everything we need. The thing we want to use is right under our fingertips. Lotus Notes/Domino. My boss is a fucking Lotus Notes Programmer and they won’t let her use the damn program to make our telephone directory because IS doesn’t think this is the direction the company should be headed. ? If you knew anything about our company you’d see a TON of shit is located in Lotus Notes and more and more things are getting put into it on a daily basis. So, in short, we have the perfect technology right under our fingertips but IS keep slapping our hands saying “NO NO, don’t touch that”. So I’m stuck with outdated technology and am pulling my hair out with everyone else in my group.

As with any customer oriented job I’m getting yelled at left and right by my customer for something I have NO CONTROL over. Bitched at for something we’re busting our asses to change but can’t. We’d say fuck IS and just do it, which has been done in the past, but my bosses job has apparently been threatened if that happens. They’ve caught on to that game and won’t tolerate it anymore. Even though in the past it’s always been proved that we were right and IS was wrong.

I fucking hate corporations.

I really want out of this job, really bad. It causes me way too much stress and it’s gotten to be a lot more customer oriented than I expected. At first it was mostly data entry. My old boss dealt with the customers but my new boss has them coming directly to me for most things. Doesn’t help that she’s out most of the time too.

Overall my job isn’t too horrible and if IS would fucking listen to us it would improve 100%. I fucking hate our IS department, fucking Lotus nazi’s.

Yeah, so I’m going to go squeeze my stress ball now.