Courses are fun

At work yesterday, we had our weekly team meeting. Our manager indicated that we had a couple of courses to take as a group.

I have re-inherited a writer who needs to be hounded because she can't work independently. She has told me for over a month that she has work for me to review. I have yet to do any reviewing because she has been working on "last-minute changes" that apparently stretch for weeks.

She used to be a part of my team years ago. She got a different team lead. Due to a bunch of assignment shuffles, I now take on more of a team lead role and I lose writing new software enhancements. I basically have half the team under my wing.

Change is good. Inheriting this woman again isn't good, though.

Anyway, this incompetent person had this exchange with our manager in the meeting:

"How about Cutiebootie? Did she complete the courses?" she asked.

"Of course she did. It goes without saying," he replied.

It was odd that she asked if I did. It actually made the females on our team look bad. The males are doing much better in the course completion department. I'm the only female who has completed them.

My manager knows how I tick. Give me a course to take and I will do it as soon as I can because I like learning. It's that simple.

Escaping work for an escape room

I have roughly half a workday later on today. We have a team event in the afternoon.

I am looking forward to not working. I get to see most of my colleagues tomorrow. Two of them couldn't make it. I'm actually relieved because one is the diva and the other talks so much that he drowns everyone out.

We are doing an escape room. I've never done one before. I assembled a list of escape rooms for us to choose from and we have chosen one that is near my old neighbourhood.

My manager asked me for suggestions to have a drink and a snack afterwards. He quoted allotting $10 for each of us. I indicated that it would be fine to go over that amount and shell out ourselves for any overage. I would rather be satisfied with what I choose to eat and drink than abide by a sum that won't get me what I want.

That's just me, though. I like the flexibility to choose what I want to snack on and drink without a ridiculous restriction.

Here's hoping that the afternoon is fun and enjoyable.

Luggage check and a rainbow devil

Yay to the weekend!

It has been over 1.5 years since I looked at the contents of my luggage. Since I am travelling in less than a month, I opened it up to check out what I had there.

I'm glad that I am a planner. I ended up placing a travel facial scrubber in there, along with branded hockey team socks for the hockey games that I'll be attending.

I'll be wearing my quick-and-dirty rainbow devil costume later on today. It'll be fun, although it's supposed to rain all day.

Team lunch and expense predicament

Our team get-together was a lot of fun. We spent over three hours eating, drink, and chatting on a hot, humid day on a shaded patio. Eventually, the humidity dropped a bit and it was more comfortable.

The good news is that my corporate credit card worked to pay for our outing, which was nearly $400 

CAD. The downside is that my manager shouldn't have asked me to expense this meal. There's a corporate rule that if the manager is a part of a group activity that needs to be expensed, he needs to file it, and not someone on his team whom he manages.

It opens quite the can of worms to get my money. He doesn't like using e-transfer. I don't want to meet him somewhere to get the funds in cash, hit a bank machine, and deposit them. Ugh.

Anyway, we'll see how diligent the expense folks are in figuring out my expense report.

Team name with a spanking reference

At work, we have a health program where there are exercise challenges every quarter. I like that someone created this name for a team:

I wish that I had made that suggestion. Next time!

Kyle Lowry delivers quite the post-game slap

The Toronto Raptors are in round one of the playoffs. The team is doing well so far.

After game 2, Kyle Lowry was so pumped that, while heading to the change room, he gave quite the butt slap to a lucky staff member.

Ah, how I'd love to be on that receiving end!

Craziness at work, but am hanging in there

Things at work are nuts. A software release got moved up by four days. Luckily, I have had my intern and another colleague work with me on it. We are seeing the finish line.

I normally work at home on Wednesdays. Yesterday, I went into work. It was good under the circumstances.

Tomorrow, I'm off to attend an office function. The next couple of weeks will be busy. I am looking forward to taking a break soon.

Do normal colleagues exist?

It was a busy Monday at work. My colleague who joined my team almost two months ago showed odd signs of incompetence.

She has been with the company for a good three years. She completely messed up a procedure and insisted that "everyone" updates these pages the same way as she. I actually had to disprove her. Even my manager got into the conversation.

Weird. I sometimes have to wonder whether there is something different about the way that she is wired. Luckily, I get a break from seeing her for a couple of days. I am working from home. It's a distraction to have her approach me a couple of times an hour when I am in the office.

I miss having normal colleagues.

Incompetent colleague is on her way out

The incompetent colleague who has been with us for three months is on her way out the door.

My manager had a private meeting with me last Thursday. He has decided to let her go.

On the one hand, I am relieved for both my students and I who have been trying to help her learn. The problem is that she has issues with comprehension. None of us can help her there.

Everything needs to be written down for her to memorize the details. Explaining details seems to go in one ear and out the other.

Last Thursday, our manager asked her what an acronym stood for and what it meant in our team meeting. As expected, she nailed the former. She got the latter wrong. She has been doing this task since she first started. The question wasn't complex at all.

On a good note, I have another colleague who has joined our team. One of my students and I will be training her on Monday. None of them know that this incompetent colleague is heading out the door.

That's where the other hand comes in. She has a childlike mentality. She's a decent person and I feel sad that she will be losing her job. However, she is a burden to our entire team. We have all been pitching in to help her and the exercise has been futile.

I don't know when her final day will be. My guess is that it'll be at the end of this month.

Introducing me to a new employee

Thursday was a busy day at work. I could write about tons of small, but significant details. I will need to spread it out.

Our team has a new software developer. Sharky, who is the manager of this team, made us all huddle around the new employee and introduced him to us, one team member at a time.

When it came down to me, I got this introduction:

"This is Cutiebootie. She is our writer. She is demanding, but she's pretty good," he said.

I looked at him.

"Just joking," he said to me.
"That's the nicest thing that you have ever said to me!" I exclaimed.

Our entire team laugh. My job is done.

A compliment that came out of nowhere

The other day, I got a compliment from my manager that was completely unexpected. It happened during a conference call.

To make an extremely long story short, we have a group of employees in another country that had questions. A handful of us in Toronto were on this call. They want to set up a similar structure that we have here.

The problem is that these folks want to have a team leader, but none of us in Toronto feel that any of them can handle this position. One of the tasks would be training new employees.

"You would have to train every new employee that joins us. Frankly, I think Cutiebootie and her team should continue training new folks. Cutiebootie is the best trainer that we have," my manager said.

Wow. I'll take it.

Dreadful Diva is gone... yay!

Tuesday was the day. It was dreadful diva's last day with the company.

I worked from home that day. I suppose that I was lucky to not be in the office. I was in a four-hour conference call that started at 07:00.

My manager had his regular one-on-one meeting with her. It was different, though. He had one human resources (HR) person with him, and another HR person on the phone.

On Thursday, I held a regular weekly meeting with my two writers. I have one writer who has been on our team for just over a month. I also have a student who has been with us for just over two months.

Although I wasn't expecting a bit of a therapy session, it happened. We are all so comfortable talking to one another that I am glad that it happened.

They expressed how uncomfortable it was to hear dreadful diva (DD) complain and vent about various aspects of her job. Although someone had reported to my manager that negative comments were directed at a number of folks, including me, the writer on our team indicated that there wasn't anything aimed directly at me -- that it was more process and more towards our manager.

My student missed a deadline by a day, which was unusual. She admitted that she was affected by the negativity coming from DD. She felt sluggish. I get it.

It was a good conversation with them, with all of us sharing our observations and concerns. It's over, thankfully.

I had a talk with my manager after we had finished conducting an interview on Thursday. He had indicated that DD was confrontation from the start when she first entered the meeting room and saw the HR person.

DD apparently cited that my manager had indicated during her interview that she would be a team lead, taking over my job. Um, I don't recall any of that. If she did, it wouldn't happen a month after starting. She could barely use our authoring tool.

She has selective hearing. In her interview, we had mentioned our new authoring tool. During her first week in training, she constantly referred to that tool. We haven't moved over to it yet!

My writer pointed out that during her interview that she did not hear our manager mention that she would be taking over a lead role. You are given such a role when you have proven that you are competent. My new writer, who is essentially my mini-me, is perfectly competent. It's the reason why she is taking over my writing duties.

DD said that she is planning on suing the company for being misled. The suing part doesn't surprise me. Before she joined the company, she had her lawyer go through the benefits package. I knew that she would be a difficult person right from the start. My manager nodded in agreement.

He also noted that she pointed out that she had quit her previous job to take this one. Well, that's life. You decide whether you want to take the plunge and try a new job. Sometimes, it works out. In this case, it didn't.

We are all relieved that she is gone. Sadly, she caused some grief after she was led out of the office and building. She had our IM app on her phone. She apparently used it to say goodbye to folks. She also asked someone to go out for lunch.

If I were in her shoes, I wouldn't have done any of that on a corporate tool that you shouldn't be using once you are terminated. Instead, I would leave, go home, think, and then write goodbye e-mails to folks instead.

My manager had IT terminate her session at a server level. It's incredible how stressful Tuesday was for our team.

I am so glad that this nightmare is over. I'm not sure how the suing-the-company saga will unfold, but she doesn't have a case when her performance was the main cause of her termination.