Posted in cyberpunk, music, Office Life, Punk/Alternative/Indie, science fiction, writing

This Devil Can’t Even Spell Prada

Posted on by D. D. Syrdal

More stories from the Zone (aka my office).

Most of you are familiar with the cast of characters in my department, and my direct manager popularly known as HMFIC. Today just reinforced why I hate this man so much.

When I first started working for him, he made a big deal of not having me keep his calendar for him, reiterating again and again to anyone who would listen that he preferred to take care of it himself, book his own meetings and so on, how much easier it was for him to just deal with it himself, in the time it took him to explain to me what he wanted he could have it done, blahblahblah…

I hear you snickering, knowing what’s coming.

I don’t think he books anything for himself anymore, except his own doctor’s appointments (and I had a manager in the past who actually had me make dental appointments for him). So I guess he gets props for that.

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying taking the train to work, but this morning I drove myself because I had a bunch of extra stuff I wanted to haul in and didn’t want to be an obnoxious train commuter with bags of junk taking up excess space. So I’m struggling into my cube just after 8:00 (traffic. This driving stuff sucks), just barely walked past his cube, and he’s out like a shot saying “Well as soon as you get settled I need to have you set up a meeting for me…” and proceeds to tell me the details of who, when, what this meeting will include. While he’s talking I’m going about setting my purse and bags down, digging out my glasses from the purse, taking my coat off, etc., etc. Did I bother to stop and write down what he was saying? Hellz no.

Additionally, I’m the only person in the department who still has a desktop computer, not a laptop. When I boot this beast up on Monday mornings it takes a good hour to load all the programs and patches/fixes/spyware/bloatware/keylogger programs the company has loaded on it in over the last five years. So I did the only thing I could: Walked off to the cafeteria to get breakfast.

By the time I got back ten minutes later he was busy with Overseer discussing some football game. Uh-huh. Instead of sending out the frigging meeting request himself for the few people he needed in attendance at 9:00 THIS MORNING, it was clearly more efficient to wait for my computer to boot up while he talked football. Not that it really mattered, most of the people he wanted at the meeting don’t typically show their faces here until after 9:00 anyway.

So feeling rather martial and cyberpunky this morning, let’s have My Chemical Romance “SING” us out with some post-apocalyptic laser blasts (I wish there was a video for “Bulletproof Heart” but there’s not yet so this will work for now) This is from their latest release, “Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys”. The whole album is fantastic, not a single throw-away track. (if an advertisement starts in the video, pause it and you’ll get the button to skip it)

Author:

Writer of vampire stories and science fiction. First novel, "Revenants Abroad", available now at Amazon. If you like a vampire you can go out drinking with and still respect yourself in the morning, I think you'd like Andrej.

25 thoughts on “This Devil Can’t Even Spell Prada”

  2. I think I know what you were looking at, that’s just the most recent posts under the tag of “writing.” I’ll get bumped down as more posts tagged ‘writing’ go up. Your own posts should show up there anytime you make one and tag it ‘writing.’ 🙂

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  3. My blood rise a bit just reading this. I hate it when people do that. I hope he fit hello DD how was your weekend in his list of command. Atleast act as he care of something. Then having yacking away when he can at least start on some of the work load himself, (screaming ) this is what I detest. IF your going to be a boss or act as a boss to someone esle be at least fair.
    Nice song by the way, My Chemical Romance “Sing”, I even played it reading your post it set the mood of your post!

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  4. LOL Yeah, it’s a great song.

    No, he didn’t bother to inquire about my weekend or even say “good morning” before he started in with what he needed. That’s absolutely typical of him, though, it didn’t even impress me. But my GAWD, could he at least wait until I have my freaking coat off? I had both hands full with stuff I was carrying, I’m sure he was expecting me to just drop everything and start writing down what he was saying. I so need one of those laser guns they had in the video.

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    1. 🙂 I was thinking the same thing but I am sure your job place is zero tolerance. But it never hurt to imagine. I have a question do they have evaluation or suggestion box for the employee (anonymous ofcourse)?

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  5. No they don’t. The only thing even close to that is an inside ‘ethics hotline’, but of course since you’d be calling from within the system, it will be able to record what number the call came from. This does mean, however, that you could call from someone else’s phone when they’re not around… 😈

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    1. That mess up but it sound like your thinking one step ahead of the game “calling from someone else phone when they are not around”.:)
      I am sure thing would not change. He would just be worst than he is. At least you know with him….he is consistence.

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  6. Yeah, he’s annoying, but it’s not an ethics violation. You can’t report someone for lack of common courtesy or being self-absorbed. Time to bust out my voodoo doll.

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  7. I’m convinced that the entire American corporate structure was invented by a bunch of overgrown mama’s boys who never had to do so much as find their own socks in the morning – they set up the workplace so that they could use stand around using stupid sports analogies while women did the hard work.

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    2. Ha, not to worry.

      This was such an abrupt about-face with the meeting thing. From doing all his own meetings, to having me schedule every single little thing. Half the time I swear it’s just an excuse to come over and talk. It just annoys me so much when he starts in when I’m barely in the door in the morning. This wasn’t the first time. And seriously, instead of waiting for me to book that damn meeting, he should have sent the invite out himself, if he knew that early he was going to need the meeting this morning. He’s a great one for saying “Get with so-and-so’s admin, and see if you can find a time for us to meet.” Uh, dude, what year do think this is? Everyone has Outlook, I don’t need to check with the admin to see if the other guy’s calendar is clear. We don’t keep calendars on paper anymore. Douchebag.

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  8. “Everyone has Outlook, I don’t need to check with the admin to see if the other guy’s calendar is clear. ”

    That’s what I mean – it’s bullsh!t feudal sexist thinking, that it’s your job to talk to the other admin [serf] [little mommy], so that he can talk to the other MFIC [landowner] [golden boy].

    (I’m in a better mood than my militant marxist feminist ravings would have you believe; it’s just I have no patience for this kind of crap)

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  9. You bet your ass it is. That’s what motivated the move down to the other end of the building in June. He wanted the larger cube, and the private conference room. He was feeling all puffed up and important, big man on campus (for all the good it did him). Problem was, he didn’t rate the larger cube, they reconfigured it to a normal size before he was allowed to move into it. It’s almost a caste system, very stratified here. And you know, normally it wouldn’t be a problem. With anyone else they wouldn’t make such a big deal of it, but you should have heard him all the times on the phone saying “I’ll have my admin set up a meeting…” Most people would just say “I’ll set up a meeting” even if they intended to pass off the actual mechanics of getting it done to their admin. Even our new VP seemed hesitant to ask me to do anything when he was out here for a couple weeks. HMFIC is living in the past.

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    1. Yah, he’s one of those “have your girl call my girl” dinosaurs, clearly making up for the smaller cube by reminding everybody that he has an admin to do his bidding – not just any admin, mind you, but don’t doubt for a minute that everybody knows that you’re the smartest one they’ve got.

      May I just repeat: what a plus-sized load of bullsh!t.

      The new VP, on the other hand, sounds possibly like an evolved individual

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  10. I have high hopes for the new veep. I overheard HMFIC (hard to miss, with his loud booming voice) telling Overseer this morning that he and the new VP are on two different planets in their thinking. When that sort of situation crops up, there’s usually a personnel shake-up close behind. I’m thinking VP may get tired of HMFIC and move him into another role… 😉

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  12. “No, he didn’t bother to inquire about my weekend or even say “good morning” before he started in with what he needed.”

    Gah! How difficult is it to greet someone?

    I had a couple of tough bosses in the past, BUT, they were still respectful and polite. There’s a lot to be said for simple common courtesy.

    A good boss is one who is a good LEADER.

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    1. This is classic behavior for him. One of the other managers who works for him is out for awhile (not sure how long yet), apparently his wife is battling cancer and it’s spread to her lymph nodes. So after he related this to Hawkeye yesterday, he immediately launched into one of his stories about how he knows about lymph nodes because years ago when he was snorkeling and cut himself on some coral the infection spread to his lymph nodes… He always manages to turn the convo back around to focus on himself. He always has to one-up anyone on anything, even a death in the family. He’s been going to some dr’s appt’s himself lately. Do you think I asked what for, or showed any interest or sympathy? HAHAHAHA! Not a chance. I’ll be getting an earful eventually, whether I want to or not.

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  14. Really?? I’m loving it. I like the way they always have a theme, entire personas built into the albums. It’s not as dark as their earlier stuff, this one seems more focused on gang wars, resistance, fighting for survival. And I love Steve Righ? in the whole Dr. Death-Defying thing, I’d love to know who wrote that script. I wonder if he ever dj’d?

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