Cow-orker: Actually slightly worrying

My god. The Spawn is home sick, left in the care of The Spouse. But The Spouse was asleep when the Cow-orker left this morning, and is still asleep now. I know this because the five-year-old Spawn keeps calling its mother to let her know what it's doing, and that Daddy is still sleeping. The Spawn has tried to wake The Spouse up, but keeps getting told to go away and let him sleep.

If the Cow-orker seems concerned that her Spawn is effectively at home alone and unsupervised, she's hiding it remarkably well.

---

Later:
That's a relief (in more ways than one) - she's left early so she can go home to The Spawn.

Cow-orker: taking the Manson Defense

"I'm going to have to ring this client and stir them," says the person who gets mortally offended when clients get unhappy with her, "It's in my nature."

I'm pretty sure serial killers use that defense, too.

Cow-orker: To Boldly Go...

This is a strange and unique experience in pain. The Cow-orker is away for the next couple of days and I'm using the opportunity to tidy up the work instruction documentation for this section.

I'm now charting the dangerous waters of a 70-page document, around of half of which was originally written by me, and all of which has since been subject to extensive Cow-orker updating and reformatting.

God, this is making my head hurt so much. Not just the pidgin English, but the fact that just inserting a line break between paragraphs can cause half the document to spontaneously reformat itself. Clearly her gift for database design extends to word-processing...

Cow-orker: Let Sleeping Wildebeest Lie

It's strangely quiet. Then a strange snuffling, grunting sound breaks the silence - the Cow-orker has fallen asleep at her desk.

Hah! One mighty snort and she frightens herself awake, looking around frantically to see if anyone noticed!

Hahahahaha...

Presumably she's crashing here from too many sleepless nights at home, waiting for The Spouse to come inside from videotaping the alien flyovers and trying to record her while she's asleep.

I can now back him up on one thing, however - she does snore.

Cow-orker: The Truth Is Out There

The Cow-orker was woken again by The Spouse in the small hours of the morning with more video camera antics. This time he was out in the back yard screaming wildly about becoming a millionaire.

Because, you see, he'd just spent the last hour filming UFOs.

And he'd drunk half a carton of beer, which presumably went some way to explaining why the Cow-orker wasn't quite able to share his vision of translating footage of strange lights in the sky near a military airbase into instant wealth.

Yee-hah.

Cow-orker: miscellany

"Oh, I didn't tell you about this, did I?"

"Actually you did."

"Oh. Well, I'm going to tell you all about it all over again."

(What she's telling me is the reason behind her decision to switch the brand of recordable CDs she's been using).

No, strangely, I'm not making any progress on this, because some retard keeps interrupting me to talk about everything else that crosses their mind.

"I just sent an email to W***** to set up a meeting. I also asked him blah blah blah..."

Gah! I know you sent him an email, because you cc'ed me. You don't need to read the whole thing aloud to me again!

Cow-orker: plotting & scheming?

Joy. I've just had the fallout from another bout of "moral obligation" hysteria fall in my lap.

I think she's also finally gotten wind of the restructure I proposed for her area and is trying to get rid of me now. She found a position going at another department 100 miles inland and up in mountains and thinks I should apply for it:

"Not sure how you'd get there tho since its at ********* :) but mooving wouldn't be as much of an issue."

Note the mooving, by the way.

Because we're special...

An anouncement from the office of the second-highest ranking official across our entire organisation:

[Our Dept.] ARCHIEVES COMPLAINCE WITH HEWRRs FOR 2006.

It gets better. When I pointed it out to the Cow-orker and said how special it made me feel, she replied with:

Did you know that if you take and AWA now that [the Dept.] could decide that when it expries they can't afford to renegotiate with you and you revert back to Little Johnnie's so called safety net of 5 minimum conditions for employment?

While I'm having some trouble making sense of this, I'm reasonably sure she missed my point entirely.

Cow-orker: please vote me off the island

Impending renovations and staffing shortages have seen me moved back to Cow-orker Land, complete with real-live Cow-orker and Perpetual Jabbering Action.

I haven't had to work in close proximity to her since late 2004. God, I'd forgotten how loud she was. I've only been dealing with her when she's been worked up or stressed about something. Rediscovering just how much background noise she generates has been an education, and I think I've already gone deaf in my left ear after only three hours' exposure to the background Cow-orker emanations.

Argh argh argh...

Cow-orker: Mathematics of fear

Recipe for terror = (Cow-orker + wireless headset) = (roaming wall of sound effect + incipient deafness).

Cow-orker: Resistance is useless!

My old manager is in damage control mode now, as the Cow-orker descended on one of our support sections and began invoking "moral obligation" and telling them it was essential they begin immediately supporting something which hasn't even been agreed to yet. This is her version of "Shock and Awe".

Her human target apparently responded with something less than blind enthusiasm and total submission to her will. The Cow-orker assumes that he's being deliberately unhelpful in not wanting to embrace a half-arsed solution to a problem that hasn't yet been defined.

"Well I don't see any reason why you can't do this!"

At this point, common sense might suggest to a normal individual that this is because she has no understanding of what the helpdesk actually does. In her case, however, common sense gets shouted down by Cow-orker Sense which dictates that because she once worked in the forerunner to this area for a few months sometime last century (until they couldn't take anymore, the wimps!) she knows exactly what they can or can't do now.

End result: an unhappy, morally indignant and still-fuming Cow-orker, and an aggreived support area wondering what they did to anger the gods this time and whether it's too late to start rolling out the razor wire.

Marketing the blame

There's just something deeply satisfying about giving bad news to Marketing people...

No, the Cow-orker isn't heading back there - if that was the case they'd probably treat it as good news, as this is a different branch of Marketing (we have multiple Marketing branches - pity us). Later on, maybe, they'd start to wonder why everything seemed to be a crisis.

For the last few days I've been getting to tell Marketing variations of "Sorry, we can't do anything about the fact you sent out 10,000 advertising brochures without checking any of the facts first. The suppliers don't see how it's their problem, either, and aren't willing to sell stuff to us stuff 15% below cost to get you out of trouble."

The situation is wholely and solely Marketing's fault, and all it would have taken to avoid was a simple "Are these costs still current?" query. Instead I've gotten to witness this wonderful series of fabrications, denials and casting of blame at suppliers as the Marketing manager engages in as much butt-covering as humanly possible before things hit the fan.

And just to make it even funnier, it's also emerged that because they didn't check any details with anyone, they're partly (okay, mostly) responsible for causing potentially hundreds of clients to commit inadvertent software piracy over the last year...

Cow-orker: when the lowest common denominator keeps moving.

"You need to clarify this some more, because if it confuses me it's going to confuse the clients. You know how stupid some of them are."

"Fair enough. How are you going at simplifying those multi-page pricelists full of meaingless supplier abbreviations, unnecessary information and confusing jargon that we keep getting queries about?"

"I don't think I need to do that. If our clients aren't smart enough to read what I'm giving them, then they shouldn't be ordering from us."

[Translation: "I don't understand it and I don't want to do it."]

Cow-orker: survival tips

A couple of times a day the Cow-orker passes my office on her way to drop some paperwork at Admin. On the way back she's taken to stopping in "for a chat". For "chat" read "interrogation" - her growing paranoia about what I might or might not be working on is eroding her already childlike capacity for dealing with things on a "need to know" basis.

Preliminary results indicate that, if I see her go past, it's actually more productive for me to slip out into the back alleyway and do nothing for ten minutes than it is to remain at my desk, get trapped, and try to continue working while she takes guesses at wthat I'm working on and tells me why it can't possibly work.

Cow-orker: Silly Season continues

Cow-orker: "We can't offer support for this for clients who want to use it from home!"

Me: "You've written it into the terms and conditions on our website that we can."

Cow-orker: "Gotta go!"

Marketing, a.k.a. Tourette's Syndrome

We receive a quote from a supplier. The Crazy Man and I are pleased because it matches what we expected to be paying rather than the higher amount our account manager at the supplier kept insisting was the real cost.

Unfortunately the supplier has cc'ed Marketing, who are the ones hanging out for the items in question. Before the Crazy Man or I have time to lock in the price by acknowleding and accepting the written quote, the Marketing manager replies to the supplier, cc'ing us and the account manager who gave us the verbal quote on the high prices to begin with.

Marketing: "Thanks for the cheaper price, but this is all very confusing. We were expecting to pay the dearer price that you've been telling us for the last few weeks we're supposed to pay. Can you please explain why we're not paying the higher cost? Because we've reworked our whole business plan around the higher price, and this means we'll have to change it now."

We're now waiting for the account manager to inform us that the cheaper price from their underling was an error, at which point the Marketing manager will start wailing (again) about having to pay the higher price.

This has helped me work out the difference between strategic marketing (where the Cow-orker was based while working under the Marketing Shrew) and random bone-headed marketing, which is what I'm trying to deal with at the moment.

One involves grand visions that are almost completely divorced from the capacity of anyone to deliver them, while the other is simply blurting out the first stupid thing that enters your mind.

Cow-orker: Reload, shoot other foot

"Why isn't it ready yet? I leaked information about it, and it's still not ready to go, and now they want to know when it will be ready!"

"Remember that thing you kicked up a big fuss about last week and insisted everyone needed to discuss before this could go live?"

"Yes..."

"Well, they're discussing it."

"But - noooooooo!!!"

Ah, I see - they weren't actually supposed to listen to her.

Cow-orker: Hobbies

The Cow-orker has developed a new hobby.

First she finds something that she's not responsible for. Then she finds the person most affected by that something without actually being responsible for managing it, either. Then she encourages them to tell her about problems they're having with it, without actually telling them that she's not the person who'll be dealing with it anyway.

At this point, having successfully identified a random problem, she throws the panic switch. Things then go one of two ways.

OPTION 1

She sits on the issue for two to three days to build up a good panic-driven head of steam while the information she's gleaned from her unsuspecting source gradually becomes obsolete. Then she rings her source back and panics them more by telling them how much more critical their situation has become because of the two or three days that have elapsed. It doesn't matter if she tells them exactly what they told her in the first place; the Cow-orker is a master at inflating something into a full-blown crisis and has been known to send people running in circles like headless chickens just through the sheer weight of conviction she can bring to her claims that they're doomed. Plus, of course, they're under the impression that she's actually been looking into their concerns since she last spoke to them.

Then she rings me and tells me she's just spoken to whoever, and they're really stressing out about whatever the issue is, because they're in an awful situation, they're doomed, and they don't know what to do. At this point it's customary for me to act surprised and explain to her that I've actually been speaking to these people before and since she first pumped them for information, that they're aware the situation is either under control or on its way to being resolved, and that her victims should know there's nothing new to worry about.

Her customary response? "Well they're in a blind panic at the moment for some reason, so someone really needs to speak to them to sort things out. Would you like me to do it?"

Are bears Catholic?

OPTION 2

Rather than stew on the issue, she begins contacting everyone she can think of (senior management, middle management, operational supervisors) and rants desperately about the great crisis of our times and how we're morally obliged to act now now now and implement some half-arsed solution she's made up on the spot and which has the twin benefits of being completely unworkable and not having been run past the people who would actually need to implement it.

Not that it matters what they might have to say, however. The Cow-orker has decided that there's a moral obligation at stake, and that the only solution is to make it someone else's problem immediately whether or not they're equipped to handle it in the first place. Following this, she'll ring me and rave down the phone, approaching borderline hysteria when I won't agree to begin trying to implement her plan, and ramping up the volume in the belief it will make her case more persuasive.

"But they have to do it! We have a moral obligation!" (Which I'm assuming is either her new buzzword, or means that, having convinced someone else that the sky is about to fall, she's then promised she'll take care of things for them without checking first to see whether she actually can).

This is followed by my token effort to convince her that implementing a poorly though-out knee-jerk solution without consulting any of the people expected to deliver it, which has no resources to support it, and which we can be reasonably confident will fail, is likely to upset clients far more than simply explaining to them that we're working on a solution to what's actually a non-critical problem of her own invention.

This option usually ends in dire warnings of imminent catastrophe, the necessity of calling back an equally frantic client or workmate immediately (because they've somehow gotten it into their head that the end is nigh and "are in a blind panic"), and further exhortations to do something immediately even if it doesn't even give the illusion of being remotely useful.

Cow-orker: Welcome to the Twilight Zone

The Cow-orker just paid a visit, so I've been treated to a glimpse inside Chez Cow-orker.

The Spouse got somewhat hammered last night. The Cow-orker woke up at 1.30 this morning to find him swaying at the end of the bed, clutching a video camera. When asked what the hell he was doing, his response was that now he was finally going to prove she snored.

The Cow-orker tells him he's an idiot and, morevoer, that he's creeping her out with his video camera antics and is never to do anything like that again. The Spouse objects to being described as creepy, and decides to teach her a lesson by sleeping on the couch. The old, backbreaker couch, that is, with no suspension or upholstery. Yeah, that'll teach her. He grabs a blanket and a pillow and retires to the moral highground where videotaping unsuspecting sleeping women isn't considered the province of serial killers and stalkers.

An hour later the Cow-orker is woken by a crash. The Spouse, having successfully half-crippled himself on the couch, has tried to return to bed but tripped over the blanket in mid-lurch and collapsed in an incoherent heap on the floor. Eventually he makes it to bed.

An hour after that, the Cow-orker is woken again. This time, he's out on the front porch, urinating off into the darkness. His explanation this time is that it was closer than the toilet, which is at the other end of the house. She returns inside, grateful that it's still only 3.30am and that they have a high fence along the front of their yard. It's not until much later that she realises how lucky she was that he was able to negotiate the front door in the first place.

Just another night in the suburbs, really...

Rumour and Expectation

Day One:
My contract is renewed for another two months.

Day Two:
The Token Human who replaced the Cow-orker when she left for Marketing hands in his notice. Cat + Pigeons has nothing on what this results in,,,

Day Three:
Word spreads. The feeding frenzy begins.

• the Crazy Man approaches me to see if I want the job. He doesn't seem too surprised when I say "no", and we briefly discuss whether now is the time to look at restructuring that unit;
  
  
• the Cow-orker approaches to see if I want to take the job. She's still struggling with the idea that I might not want to come back. I tell her "no", and she asks whether the Crazy Man has sounded me out about taking the job;
  
  
• my former manager phones me to warn that I'm likely to be set upon by the Secondary Cow-orker to see if I've been head-hunted (or press-ganged) yet. The Secondary Cow-orker interrogated the token human at length the previous evening to make him spill the beans about what was going to happen with his job, and appears to be trying to piece together the order in which he told people. Apparently this has something to do with her theory of people nominating their successor;
  
  
• a former workmate rings up to see if I've been approached to take the job. He only thinks it's funny now because the Primary and Secondary Cow-orkers haven't yet seen fit to confide in him;
  
  
• the Secondary Cow-orker finally strikes. Have I been approached yet? What do I intend to do? What do I think "they" are planning?
  (She could simply ask management what they plan to do, but that might pose unacceptable limits on the wildness of her speculations. Plus she's probably convinced they'd lie to her, anyway, so she may as well begin asking everyone.else who doesn't know what's happening so they can fuel her imagination);
  
  
• another former workmate warns me that the Secondary Cow-orker is now quietly going nuts trying to predict what will happen, and inventing scenarios in which she'll be able to win the job that's rightfully hers after being "cheated" of it twice already;
  
  
• my former section head approaches my former manager to see if I plan to move back into my old area, and whether anyone's approached me about doing so yet. He seems surprised to learn that I'm not leaping with joy at the prospect of returning to work with the Cow-orker.
  (Incidentally, this confirms my suspicions that people didn't believe me last year when I said that I wasn't just leaving because of the money);
  
  
• the Secondary Cow-orker drops by for another visit to tell me her theories on why the token human is leaving. To the best of my knowledge they all miss the mark by a wide margin. Then she tells me how she'd have been a much better choice for the job in the first place, because after one rough year in the role, he still didn't have the breadth of knowledge that I (or even the Cow-orker) had built up over several years;
  


• more warnings: the Seconday Cow-orker's mood swings have gotten dramatically worse when some sadist pointed out that I have a family to support and might not have a choice about whether I take the job or not;
  
  
• the Cow-orker comes back to see whether I've reconsidered my previous response, and to fish for hints as to whether I've heard anything about what's going to happen. She's busy working herself into a state of terror over the thought of being to look after things alone, even though there's actually zero possibility of that;
  
  
• my manager calls again to tell me that the Secondary Cow-orker is behaving like a lunatic, but he hasn't been able to find out what she's been told that set her off.
  

A productive day for everyone involved, really.