Post by Honeylioness on Aug 22, 2009 22:36:47 GMT -5
What a comedy of errors and insanity.
This week was going to be crazy to begin with. With a new boss starting with the company on Monday, then the FDA coming to conduct an audit with less than a day's notice, A condo Board meeting on Monday evening, final meeting with the exchange student coordinator on Wednesday night, my court date Thursday morning to fight the ticket I got in May, then the arrival of my exchange student from Germany on Thursday evening. I would take a half day on Friday so we could walk around town, show her where the high school is, the library, then the free tickets for Eileen Ivers on Friday night.
That was the plan anyway, busy yes but certainly doable.
But it was not to be on so many levels.
Where oh where to start?
The Audit
The FDA inspector turned out to be incredibly tight assed and inconsiderate. She was to arrive at 10:00 am Monday morning, she finally showed up at 01:30 pm.
Past audits have worked along predictable lines, the auditors do not expect nor want a company to shut down normal business functions, and they respect regular business hours. Not this wench though.
Not only did she show up late every day, she was there until 7:00-8:00 pm each night, then got snippy because when she asked for something surprise surprise .... the staff had gone home. Our regular hours are 08:00 am - 04:30 pm. At least two nights the staff working most closely on the audit did not leave the office themselves until after 11:00 pm.
She banned laptops from the room - which is irregular as that is how most companies take minutes. And unlike her own agency's recommendations she would not accept electronic records. So even though it is against company policy I had to surrender original employee files instead of copies.
Despite saying for months that she wants to learn more about the Payroll/Training database .... the HR Manager has not followed up. As a result, I am the only one if the company who has a working knowledge of the system and can pull the reports and data needed.
Such as the request I got Wednesday morning - "just a few training lists" ... my butt, the list was six pages long of basically every SOP the division has and they wanted training status for all of them. I started working on that sucker at 087:00 am and did not get done with all 203 pages of the report until after 1:00 pm.
And just to top it all off - the head of Quality Assurance was deflecting all over the place and making it MY fault for missing documentation and records. I must admit I received an evil shiver of delight when I recovered e-mails showing that in fact HE dropped the ball on essential training requirements and NOT me !!!!!
Court Date
Now fast forward to Thursday which turned out to be a ridiculous day. Due to the last minute nature of the audit and the volume of requests coming to me for documentation it became clearer as the week went on that my leaving the office for who knows how many hours to sit and wait for my time in front of the Magistrate to argue my ticket was going to be challenging.
Understatement of the year.
Long story short - I was so slammed with a request for a report that wound up being over 150 pages long , I missed my court date all together. So without even being able to fight this ticket I now have to pay the $150 fine, AND it will show up on my driving record. Can't wait to see what my insurance company is going to think about THAT.
Condo
I am sure everyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE being on the Condo Association Board (insert disbelieving snorts here).
I have to draft a letter to the owners not only explaining why the project is not happening, but why it is their fault.
Gee, can't wait to start THAT project.
Exchange student
This was the largest mess all week. First came Thursday afternoon, I received a phone call from the YFU travel coordinator not to go to the airport. The airline canceled her flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Dulles. So 70 students and three chaperones were stranded for 24 hours at the airport.
So it is now Friday and the kids get onto the same flight number a day later, from tracking the flight online I see that they land on time in Dulles, Washington, DC. So far so good. But the flight coming in from Mexico that is to continue onto Boston gets messed up due to the weather being kicked up by Hurricane Bill.
And the audit is still making the office nuts. I was originally planning on leaving the office around 3:00 pm to make it to the airport and account for not only for heavier than normal Friday traffic, but the Red Sox were playing the Yankees - which always messes with the roads. However the VP of Human Resources was so stressed about my not being around to run any needed reports that he ordered a car service to pick me up at 5:00 pm to meet the flight arriving at 06:15pm.
However about 15 minutes after I left the office the travel coordinator called my office to tell me the flight has been delayed - which I do not discover until after we arrive at Logan. The new arrival time is now 08:15 pm. So I went off to Legal Seafood to have dinner.
Then the time gets pushed back again, and again and again. Finally at 10:00 pm after spending more for dinner than I have in years I learn the flight is canceled. The poor driver got to spend hours and hours just waiting. And the company got to pay a lot of money for me to have dinner at the airport!!
So I get home and then received a call at midnight, Anne is on a flight Saturday morning, which at this point I highly doubt. And it turns out I was correct to doubt. Her flight information and arrival time is a moving target at this point - 10am, noon, 2:30pm, 04:00pm, then standby - finally she is confirmed on a flight arriving at 07:00pm.
I tell the Coordinator that until her butt is IN a seat on the plane and it has lifted off the ground - don't call me. So finally I get the call she is on her way. Fine. But of course when I get to the airport - another delay. The flight that should have arrived at 7:30 pm is late taking off, then has to divert around more bad weather. Poor thing did not arrive until almost 10:00pm. Three days to get to Boston from Frankfurt. She was completely wiped out.
Schedule
I like having all my ducks in a row as it were. I do not do well with too much "off the cuff" events. I had planned something to do with Anne on Friday evening and Saturday. All that got tossed.
My friends Ruth and Theron came to lunch on Sunday to meet her and to get her computer hooked up to my wireless network. However it took over an hour to figure out why it was not working - complicated by the fact that all the error messages were in German.
Money
Have you ever been driving on the highway and suddenly just KNOW that the sound coming from your vehicle is not quite right? That was me Saturday night on I-495 coming into Lowell. Turns out I am going to need a new left rear tire.
Just freakin' perfect.
AND get the piano tuned. Because when Anne sat down to play it last night you could really hear how out of tune it has become.
Just wonderful. So, where does that leave me this week?
$150 for the court ticket
$150 + for one new tire (if it is just the one)
$180 piano tuning
Is it too late to just lay down and have my own temper tantrum and cry???
This week was going to be crazy to begin with. With a new boss starting with the company on Monday, then the FDA coming to conduct an audit with less than a day's notice, A condo Board meeting on Monday evening, final meeting with the exchange student coordinator on Wednesday night, my court date Thursday morning to fight the ticket I got in May, then the arrival of my exchange student from Germany on Thursday evening. I would take a half day on Friday so we could walk around town, show her where the high school is, the library, then the free tickets for Eileen Ivers on Friday night.
That was the plan anyway, busy yes but certainly doable.
But it was not to be on so many levels.
Where oh where to start?
The Audit
The FDA inspector turned out to be incredibly tight assed and inconsiderate. She was to arrive at 10:00 am Monday morning, she finally showed up at 01:30 pm.
Past audits have worked along predictable lines, the auditors do not expect nor want a company to shut down normal business functions, and they respect regular business hours. Not this wench though.
Not only did she show up late every day, she was there until 7:00-8:00 pm each night, then got snippy because when she asked for something surprise surprise .... the staff had gone home. Our regular hours are 08:00 am - 04:30 pm. At least two nights the staff working most closely on the audit did not leave the office themselves until after 11:00 pm.
She banned laptops from the room - which is irregular as that is how most companies take minutes. And unlike her own agency's recommendations she would not accept electronic records. So even though it is against company policy I had to surrender original employee files instead of copies.
Despite saying for months that she wants to learn more about the Payroll/Training database .... the HR Manager has not followed up. As a result, I am the only one if the company who has a working knowledge of the system and can pull the reports and data needed.
Such as the request I got Wednesday morning - "just a few training lists" ... my butt, the list was six pages long of basically every SOP the division has and they wanted training status for all of them. I started working on that sucker at 087:00 am and did not get done with all 203 pages of the report until after 1:00 pm.
And just to top it all off - the head of Quality Assurance was deflecting all over the place and making it MY fault for missing documentation and records. I must admit I received an evil shiver of delight when I recovered e-mails showing that in fact HE dropped the ball on essential training requirements and NOT me !!!!!
Court Date
Now fast forward to Thursday which turned out to be a ridiculous day. Due to the last minute nature of the audit and the volume of requests coming to me for documentation it became clearer as the week went on that my leaving the office for who knows how many hours to sit and wait for my time in front of the Magistrate to argue my ticket was going to be challenging.
Understatement of the year.
Long story short - I was so slammed with a request for a report that wound up being over 150 pages long , I missed my court date all together. So without even being able to fight this ticket I now have to pay the $150 fine, AND it will show up on my driving record. Can't wait to see what my insurance company is going to think about THAT.
Condo
I am sure everyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE being on the Condo Association Board (insert disbelieving snorts here).
I have to draft a letter to the owners not only explaining why the project is not happening, but why it is their fault.
Gee, can't wait to start THAT project.
Exchange student
This was the largest mess all week. First came Thursday afternoon, I received a phone call from the YFU travel coordinator not to go to the airport. The airline canceled her flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Dulles. So 70 students and three chaperones were stranded for 24 hours at the airport.
So it is now Friday and the kids get onto the same flight number a day later, from tracking the flight online I see that they land on time in Dulles, Washington, DC. So far so good. But the flight coming in from Mexico that is to continue onto Boston gets messed up due to the weather being kicked up by Hurricane Bill.
And the audit is still making the office nuts. I was originally planning on leaving the office around 3:00 pm to make it to the airport and account for not only for heavier than normal Friday traffic, but the Red Sox were playing the Yankees - which always messes with the roads. However the VP of Human Resources was so stressed about my not being around to run any needed reports that he ordered a car service to pick me up at 5:00 pm to meet the flight arriving at 06:15pm.
However about 15 minutes after I left the office the travel coordinator called my office to tell me the flight has been delayed - which I do not discover until after we arrive at Logan. The new arrival time is now 08:15 pm. So I went off to Legal Seafood to have dinner.
Then the time gets pushed back again, and again and again. Finally at 10:00 pm after spending more for dinner than I have in years I learn the flight is canceled. The poor driver got to spend hours and hours just waiting. And the company got to pay a lot of money for me to have dinner at the airport!!
So I get home and then received a call at midnight, Anne is on a flight Saturday morning, which at this point I highly doubt. And it turns out I was correct to doubt. Her flight information and arrival time is a moving target at this point - 10am, noon, 2:30pm, 04:00pm, then standby - finally she is confirmed on a flight arriving at 07:00pm.
I tell the Coordinator that until her butt is IN a seat on the plane and it has lifted off the ground - don't call me. So finally I get the call she is on her way. Fine. But of course when I get to the airport - another delay. The flight that should have arrived at 7:30 pm is late taking off, then has to divert around more bad weather. Poor thing did not arrive until almost 10:00pm. Three days to get to Boston from Frankfurt. She was completely wiped out.
Schedule
I like having all my ducks in a row as it were. I do not do well with too much "off the cuff" events. I had planned something to do with Anne on Friday evening and Saturday. All that got tossed.
My friends Ruth and Theron came to lunch on Sunday to meet her and to get her computer hooked up to my wireless network. However it took over an hour to figure out why it was not working - complicated by the fact that all the error messages were in German.
Money
Have you ever been driving on the highway and suddenly just KNOW that the sound coming from your vehicle is not quite right? That was me Saturday night on I-495 coming into Lowell. Turns out I am going to need a new left rear tire.
Just freakin' perfect.
AND get the piano tuned. Because when Anne sat down to play it last night you could really hear how out of tune it has become.
Just wonderful. So, where does that leave me this week?
$150 for the court ticket
$150 + for one new tire (if it is just the one)
$180 piano tuning
Is it too late to just lay down and have my own temper tantrum and cry???
