Tell us what's happened to you recently (that's interesting)

Mordrak · 2009-11-17T20:49:34.000Z

Lorini:

Now if El Guapo wants it so badly that he doesn’t care, then so be it, but there is no way in hell I’d pay it, no matter what my salary is because it’s not worth $3,300 a month.

I get the impression, ElGuapo isn’t hurting for money given some of his post recently. He wants someplace cool to live where he’s likely headed and has the money to afford it.

That said, the interiors are kind of interesting but it has a boring ass view. It’s Ohio though… so go figure.

ElGuapo · 2009-11-17T21:16:20.000Z

Cows as far as the eye can see.

/no Ohio women jokes, please. Ok, maybe one.

Mordrak · 2009-11-17T21:21:13.000Z

ElGuapo:

Cows as far as the eye can see.

/no Ohio women jokes, please. Ok, maybe one.

Hah. The pics I saw online were during the day, at night it’s probably a bit better though.

Rimbo · 2009-11-18T02:34:30.000Z

mmalloy:

I turned 30! I think that ticking is a bad sign.

get off my lawn

Juste · 2009-11-18T05:45:37.000Z

Well here we go again. There will be another round of layoffs. 20% of the workforce this time. No one will be fired before Christmas, but come January i might have to start looking for another job.

ElGuapo · 2009-11-18T07:35:12.000Z

I don’t know, now I’m torn. I might get to see the Chief Justice of the United State Supreme Court play Rock Band today.

I might miss shit like this. It makes for good stories to tell the grandkids one day.

cheapfilms · 2009-11-18T07:43:26.000Z

I wonder if Roberts is more of a drummer.

shift6 · 2009-11-18T07:56:19.000Z

Get back to us when Thomas and Sotomayor break out the DDR floorpads!

WarrenM · 2009-11-18T08:00:09.000Z

Racist.

Kalle · 2009-11-18T09:06:28.000Z

Just got the results for my Swedish SAT-equivalent test thing. Only two answers short of a top score. So now I get to toss my high school grades in a box and never have to look at them again.Yay me.

Brendan · 2009-11-18T09:27:25.000Z

Apologies if I’m getting a bit bloggish here but anyway…

Our meeting was a real eye-opener. After reminding my boss about the meeting couple, the boss and I went into the boardroom and wow, what an eye opener. I went first and mentioned that I was unhappy with the wife refusing to do code reviews, being inflexible and having a bad attitude with me. At this point she stood up, shouted that she refused to work with me anymore and that if this is what it has come to she will write a letter of grievance about me. She also mentioned wanting an impartial mediator which is odd since I’ve always thought of our boss as favouring them rather too much…

At this point the husband mentioned that his wife didn’t want to discuss things because our boss once put in an email that he liked me. I’m not sure who was more flabberghasted, me or him. Once we had all regained composure the conversation drifted offff to all the other people husband had an issue working with (Just about everyone.) which left our boss looking like he had been hit by a cricket bat. The crazy was much worse than even I thought because it didn’t take long until he insisted that we get a female mediator for our next meeting. (My boss had had about enough at this point and told him to stop being sexist.)

Apparently all this viciousness has been caused by my messed up sense of humour, my ardent defence of my code during code reviews and the fact that I always sound half joking no matter how serious I’m being. Your basic run off the mill twightlight zone shit.

Anyway, husband and I seem to have made our peace but wife is now writing a letter of grievance to our CEO, head of HR and regional manager I also have to sit in another meeting. I’m hoping my strategy of sticking to my initial issues and generally acting like a sane human being while she straps herself to the prow of the good ship HMS Insanity should do the trick and if that doesn’t work I’ll go on the offensive by playing the workplace sabotage card.

kerzain · 2009-11-18T09:34:42.000Z

Don’t fret about sounding like a blogger, I love the stories about the crazy husband and wife team.

Hunty · 2009-11-18T09:36:18.000Z

Man, that sounds kind of rough Brendan. I’ll be honest though, if someone is standing up and shouting in meetings and your manager is kind of gawping at them for being lunatics, it’s a fair bet that they’re gonna get hit with the HR hammer rather than you. If you’re telling it right, you’ve far more grounds for a grievance claim than she has. Calming it out is the way I reckon. I’m glad I work with sane people.

krise_madsen · 2009-11-18T10:38:41.000Z

Brendan:

Apologies if I’m getting a bit bloggish here but anyway…

Our meeting was a real eye-opener. After reminding my boss about the meeting couple, the boss and I went into the boardroom and wow, what an eye opener. I went first and mentioned that I was unhappy with the wife refusing to do code reviews, being inflexible and having a bad attitude with me. At this point she stood up, shouted that she refused to work with me anymore and that if this is what it has come to she will write a letter of grievance about me. She also mentioned wanting an impartial mediator which is odd since I’ve always thought of our boss as favouring them rather too much…

At this point the husband mentioned that his wife didn’t want to discuss things because our boss once put in an email that he liked me. I’m not sure who was more flabberghasted, me or him. Once we had all regained composure the conversation drifted offff to all the other people husband had an issue working with (Just about everyone.) which left our boss looking like he had been hit by a cricket bat. The crazy was much worse than even I thought because it didn’t take long until he insisted that we get a female mediator for our next meeting. (My boss had had about enough at this point and told him to stop being sexist.)

Apparently all this viciousness has been caused by my messed up sense of humour, my ardent defence of my code during code reviews and the fact that I always sound half joking no matter how serious I’m being. Your basic run off the mill twightlight zone shit.

Anyway, husband and I seem to have made our peace but wife is now writing a letter of grievance to our CEO, head of HR and regional manager I also have to sit in another meeting. I’m hoping my strategy of sticking to my initial issues and generally acting like a sane human being while she straps herself to the prow of the good ship HMS Insanity should do the trick and if that doesn’t work I’ll go on the offensive by playing the workplace sabotage card.

Awesome. Moar please (i.e. please keep us updated)

Brad_Grenz · 2009-11-18T16:43:10.000Z

Brendan:

Apologies if I’m getting a bit bloggish here but anyway…

Our meeting was a real eye-opener. After reminding my boss about the meeting couple, the boss and I went into the boardroom and wow, what an eye opener. I went first and mentioned that I was unhappy with the wife refusing to do code reviews, being inflexible and having a bad attitude with me. At this point she stood up, shouted that she refused to work with me anymore and that if this is what it has come to she will write a letter of grievance about me. She also mentioned wanting an impartial mediator which is odd since I’ve always thought of our boss as favouring them rather too much…

At this point the husband mentioned that his wife didn’t want to discuss things because our boss once put in an email that he liked me. I’m not sure who was more flabberghasted, me or him. Once we had all regained composure the conversation drifted offff to all the other people husband had an issue working with (Just about everyone.) which left our boss looking like he had been hit by a cricket bat. The crazy was much worse than even I thought because it didn’t take long until he insisted that we get a female mediator for our next meeting. (My boss had had about enough at this point and told him to stop being sexist.)

Apparently all this viciousness has been caused by my messed up sense of humour, my ardent defence of my code during code reviews and the fact that I always sound half joking no matter how serious I’m being. Your basic run off the mill twightlight zone shit.

Anyway, husband and I seem to have made our peace but wife is now writing a letter of grievance to our CEO, head of HR and regional manager I also have to sit in another meeting. I’m hoping my strategy of sticking to my initial issues and generally acting like a sane human being while she straps herself to the prow of the good ship HMS Insanity should do the trick and if that doesn’t work I’ll go on the offensive by playing the workplace sabotage card.

We need to get that Vanessa chick from the Facebook thread an internship at your office. It would be the ultimate realization of vicarious lunacy.

Brendan · 2009-11-18T22:59:00.000Z

The latest update is that their baby daughter is ill and was admitted to hospital last night and the mediation session has been postponed.

On a human level I can empathise as that is not a pleasant situation at all. On a personal level this is frustrating because I don’t want to prolong the stress as I have my interview on Monday and it adds an extra layer of emotion to an already volatile situation.

Brendan · 2009-11-19T09:52:13.000Z

I’ve been asked to write a short grievance letter for my mediation session tomorrow.

Is it a reasonable to have a final paragraph indicating :

"It is my sincere desire that we work together to resolve this conflict in a mutually amicable fashion to ensure the integrity of the ******* project and promote a healthy work environment.

Regards,
Me

On one hand I don’t want to lay it on too thick but on the other I want to end the letter on a somewhat positive, reconciliatory note as opposed to the preceeding paragraph which is this :

It was my belief that this breakdown in professional trust and cooperation was detrimental to our participation on the ******** project as well as to me on a personal and professional level. This resulted in me arranging a meeting between boss, wife and husband on 18 November, 2009 in an attempt to find a resolution to this. During that meeting wife indicated to all parties present that “[she] can no longer work with that man.”

Basically a giant “Fuck you”.

I’m still trying to polish up the sentance structure a bit as it feels a little bit clunky but that is the gist of it.

Tortilla · 2009-11-19T09:56:46.000Z

I love that final paragraph. Your key here in all dealings with your management is to give every appearance of being a keen hardworking individual who just wants great teamwork and is bewildered by all the issues other people are having.

If you survive this, make sure you start keeping a paper trail to serve in your defense for future disputes. Agree to things (like the code review) in email or send out email discussion notes for verbal discussions so that there’s a record of what got agreed. That will make it very hard for them to sabotage you by just fabricating claims.

balut · 2009-11-19T10:19:19.000Z

Billy D threw me my bachelor party last weekend. Surprisingly, no one got arrested.

Lurb · 2009-11-19T10:49:49.000Z

I upgraded my bicycle helmet, from an old dangerous POS to the most expensive piece of molded styrofoam in the universe.
It came in the mail today at 1 pm, I went for a ride at 3 and by 4:30 I had completely destroyed it in a hard crash, the first in many years. Everything hurts but my head (nothing broken), so I’m in fact not even a bit sorry about having to order another one.