There’s this process at work. The flammability guys do testing to make sure that everything going onto the plane is all okay. (They light things on fire and see how well they burn or don’t burn. Fun, huh?!) They write up a report about that testing. A couple of the guys write up a piece of paper that says that they approve of what’s happened in the testing and that the report is all hunky-dory. And then, sometimes, they also include a piece of paper that requests another process and approval.
I’m not involved in any of that stuff. I get involved once it’s all completed and it’s dropped off on my desk. I make copies of the information and move it around to the people who need to see that this process in the whole “we’re making an airplane!” thing has been done and done correctly.
Some of the people on the other side of my copies, however, apparently have a different way of looking at this process. While the guys making the approvals don’t really worry about when the copies are made and handed out and all that, the people getting the copies want things done in a specific order. They want the report handed in first, processed through all it’s processes, and then the approvals. And then, after that, the request for more.
This has never, in my two years working here, been how it’s done. I’ve always handed them all in at the same time. I get them all at the same time, I do the copies, and I hand them all in together. But now that’s wrong.
And since I’m the person who gives them the copies, I just got a lecture about how we’re doing it all wrong.
I’m sitting here looking at the person telling me how it’s supposed to be done and wondering why I’m hearing all of this since it has nothing to do with me. She explains that if I hand them all in at once, all they’re going to do is set them off in the corner of their desk for a day or two until they can actually work with them. And I’m thinking, “Okay, that’s all I’ll end up doing, too, if you don’t want them right away because I can’t get the guys to not hand them all in at the same time. I’m just the copy girl. I can sit on them for a day if you want, but it seems kind of silly to me.” The whole problem seems kind of silly to me. We’ve done dozens of planes going just this same way and it hasn’t been a problem yet.
But what do I know? I’m just the copy girl.
So I sit there looking at her with this confused “what do you want me to do about it” face until she stops and I tell her that I don’t have anything to do with the order the paperwork is completed and she realizes what I tried to tell her in the first place, “You’re the wrong person to be talking with about this,” and she leaves to go talk with the guy up the ladder from me.
And there isn’t any real point to me mentioning all of this to you; it’s just another example of why I think I’m working in the wrong place now.
At least it isn’t as frustrating as the phone call I got yesterday from my temp agency that told me that I wouldn’t get paid for Memorial Day and I’m not going to get paid for Independence Day. Because of the way they count hours and the way holiday pay is calculated, and because I took time off for the wedding and honeymoon, I don’t currently qualify.
This ticks me off.
And it’s why I didn’t post anything much yesterday–I was too irritated to write something without coming off as really vicious and nasty. I shouldn’t write about work at all, really, because of all the possible repercussions, libel and all that. Even though I’ve been trying very hard not to mention the name of the companies for whom I work, it really wouldn’t be that hard to figure it out.
By the way, I just got that paperwork back and it’s going to just sit on my desk for a while. How is this system so messed up that this is considered the most efficient way to handle the situation?