Touching base through texts and loving my new wifi extender

I like when former co-workers end up being friends with me. One of them texted me yesterday to ask for a reference and to meet up for dinner.

It was perfect timing. She rescued me from a rather boring all-employee meeting.

On a completely different note, I got a wifi extender. I find that my wifi in my basement tends to be spotty. This wifi extender works well. I'm impressed!

Appreciation and respect at work

For years, I successfully handled completed every software release containing documentation. As of a few months ago, this main task was handed off to two of my counterparts.

During this entire period, I felt that folks on my team took my work for granted. I wasn't losing my mind. They did.

The woman who has been doing half my role finally realized that I do a lot of work. I had invited her to a meeting on what to do after a release is over. She decided to waltz into this meeting 1.5 hours later.

It just shows that when folks aren't responsible for a task, they don't care. When they are, it matters and they panic when they don't have the answers.

It's happening now.

With my manager,  he makes me the representative for everything. I had a good talk about this issue again this past Tuesday. It needs to be spread around the team. If I'm not available, the knowledge is likely lost when I do not have a backup.

Folks are listening. In a team meeting on Thursday, this woman thanked me for always being there for her when she has questions and I quickly reply. She called me a "data bank," which is a fun nickname.

My manager decided to nominate someone else to represent our team for development work. He said that normally, it would go to me, but he said that I am pretty busy. You think?

My manager also said that for the last seven years, I have been handling all these release activities "quietly and flawlessly." I complete my work. I communicate well. I don't complain, other than when things are completely stressing me out and I need help, or when someone is holding up the process.

Progress is good. It's important to vocalize how you feel. It is also noticeable how valuable you are as an employee when you no longer do a specific task and your manager worries about the folks (yep, plural) who are taking it over.

Incompetent co-workers are everywhere!

It has been a busy week. My team of students and I had to work on a software release. We got our work done on time, with quality and accuracy, and planned it as far in advance as possible.

There were some hiccups. The main one was with a project manager. She used to be a software build programmer. She was supposed to train her predecessor. She failed.

It was the perfect storm. Her predecessor decided to take a week of vacation during a major software release. If I ever did that, my manager would not be impressed!

Her backup knew absolutely nothing. To make a long story short, our deliverables needed a couple of changes to two build scripts. It was a simple update for the project manager in the past. The backup build person had no clue what to do. The person who went on vacation had to come back and also had no clue how to update these scripts.

All of us asked the project manager to help out. She didn't. I don't get it. Sure, you have moved on to a different role. However, not helping folks who do not have the knowledge to edit build scripts caused even more issues.

This project manager had the audacity to tell me in an e-mail on Wednesday to send a couple of document links to someone. She even copied my manager. I looked at her responsibilities checklist that she had attached. This task was for her to do. I also have never dealt with this person.

What did I do? I sent her the links, copied my manager on my response, and restated her statement to send them to this person.

It is obvious that she can't do her job well. I am not doing it for her. I have plenty of other things to deal with. Moreover, if she can't answer any my questions, I do not owe her any favours in doing her work.

I can't wait till incompetent writer leaves... the countdown continues!

Thursday made me realize that it is truly good news that the incompetent writer is leaving the company. Yesterday was her farewell lunch.

I am a nice person. Perhaps I am too nice. Even though she initiated uninviting me to lunch get-togethers, I'm not the type to reciprocate out of spite. I organized her farewell lunch.

You would think that to add insult to injury that she decided to ride in my car along with my manager. I had a doctor's appointment after this lunch, so my giving folks a ride to and from the restaurant was fine.

She didn't realize that I had bought a new car. She just assumed that I still had a neatly kept Prius.

It wasn't a surprise to my boss. He has been a passenger in my car a number of times. She was surprised.

Well, that's what you get when you don't want to hang out with me at lunchtime or even talk to me. You don't have any insight on my life, let alone anything because you live in your own twisted bubble. You just assume that things remain the same with me.

In reality, things are the same with her. That cliche about not being able to teach a dog new tricks? She can get the old tricks down pat, let alone new ones.

To start, our team had a day-long work session yesterday. She literally had to look up the location of our room before going there. I had remembered it from reading the e-mail the day before, meaning that I didn't have to waste ten minutes finding the information.

Our team had the task of updating document numbers for specific user guides. I delegated all tasks, including giving myself work.

The co-ops always ask questions when they are unsure about anything. They know that I am happy to answer. We have a male writer who also was fine asking questions.

Incompetent writer? It took her forever to ask me a question. It wasn't until I asked if everyone was done so that we could run a documentation build that she approached me. Clearly, she had no idea what to do. She renamed the file. Renaming it does not update the document number. Considering that she used to do this task fairly regularly in the past, she couldn't do it now.

The co-op students, who have been with the company for over a month now, can do this task effortlessly. Incompetent writer cannot.

The same goes with expensing her meal. I had to expense it. She nearly paid for it herself after our manager told her to let me pay for it. What part of guest of honour does she not understand?

I am simply relieved that I do not have to work with her for much longer. Every time she has to complete a task, there is something wrong that happens. I am weary of it, but know that relief is in sight.

Venting is needed over an incompetent co-worker

There is never a dull moment at work. Never.

Last Wednesday, I was working from home, as I tend to do on Wednesdays. My manager sent me an instant message just after 09:30. He rarely comes in that early, let alone pings me on that application so early in the day.

He told me that a writer has resigned. I had a ton of thoughts flood my mind.

This writer has been with the company for over three years. As much as I am thrilled that she has found employment elsewhere and can only wish her well in her new position, I can't say that I will miss her as a writer on the team.

It sounds harsh. However, for the time that she has spent with the company, she has never successfully installed our product software. Frankly, she doesn't understand how our software applications work. It is a problem, as she needs to clearly write about them.

She has a difficult time expressing herself. Again, it has always been problematic and it shows in her work. She makes mistakes. She gets the information from software developers and basically places it in her documentation without fully understanding what it means.

She isn't a writer. She is more a data entry person who just wants to call it a day when 17:00 hits. The last intern who was here knew more about the product software than this writer did!

It has been clear for over a year that she does not like what she does. Frankly, she should have left the company a lot sooner.

I asked her on Friday whether she has a job lined up. She told me that she does. She also told me that "we'll see" how she does in the new job.

I found her reaction to be odd. If I were about to embark on a new job, I would be excited. I didn't see, hear, or feel any of that enthusiasm from her.

She wasn't a good fit on our team. My manager hired her. I knew within the first week of training her that she is dependent on others to tell her what to do. She isn't an independent thinker. Moreover, she is not a technical person, which is difficult when you are expected to write about technical topics.

This next statement may seem uncharacteristic for me to say. I do not want to pick up her workload. I have been doing that already with the writer who left last November. I clearly cannot do that again with another writer. I am overloaded.

A few weeks ago, I got annoyed at my manager for stating that I do more because I "earn more than the other writers." I do not think that I need to do even more than I do, which is the equivalent of two writers, simply because I make more money that the other writers. I make more money than they do because I have a graduate degree (they don't) and I have more writing experience than they do. In short, I am at my current salary because I have earned it through hard work and experience. 

Anyway, my guy and I have talked about this issue. We have both decided to focus on what I enjoy doing, which is training and working with co-op students, and writing. Someone else on the team needs to pick up the slack, as I have been doing it all the time. I back up writers who go on vacation. When I go on vacation, I do not have a backup.

Life is unfair, which isn't a newsflash. However, I should not be the one who always suffers because we are short-staffed and there is a hiring freeze taking place.

I actually feel a bit of relief that this writer is leaving. She is the one who decided to shun me from having lunch with the rest of the team in the past. I haven't enjoyed talking to her about anything since she treated me that way.

She tried to patch things up when I came back from my last vacation to Seattle. I was actually talking to another writer. She decided to hang out with us and join our conversation. Why now? I didn't even want to share what I did on my vacation with her. She didn't even want me to have lunch with her. I am thankful that I don't. I can't be around that negativity that she possesses.

Anyway, I am done with venting. Thanks for reading along. I will have a more cheerful post soon!