• CWC (unregistered)

    Thank goodness I live and work in a culture where doing your job and leaving without saying a word (such as "hi") is considered professional behaviour.

    That being said, I recently learned that several complaints to my superiors about my behaviour while trying to help co-workers with their IT problems were made but none of them resulted in any sanctions towards me. Most of them were made by the same woman and I heard she was recently fired. She's also pretty much unemployable because of her age and lack of education. I felt sorry for her for all of five seconds. "Vahingonilo, paras ilo" as they say in my country.

  • (cs) in reply to CWC
    CWC:
    Thank goodness I live and work in a culture where doing your job and leaving without saying a word (such as "hi") is considered professional behaviour.

    That being said, I recently learned that several complaints to my superiors about my behaviour while trying to help co-workers with their IT problems were made but none of them resulted in any sanctions towards me. Most of them were made by the same woman and I heard she was recently fired. She's also pretty much unemployable because of her age and lack of education. I felt sorry for her for all of five seconds. "Vahingonilo, paras ilo" as they say in my country.

    Some people hate and fear computers, and transfer that antipathy towards those who make a career of it.

  • bastard_operator_from_hell (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus

    He's not me!!

  • bastard_operator_from_hell (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    He should have sent a 500 page print job to that printer - of bestial porn - with the bitch's name on it. Get her fired.

    He's not me!

  • bastard_operator_from_hell (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    C-Octothorpe:
    hoodaticus:
    He should have sent a 500 page print job to that printer - of bestial porn - with the bitch's name on it. Get her fired.
    That's not necessary... I'm sure some forged print logs would do the trick.
    Nice! Another idea - remove the earthing pin from the wall plug, strip a live wire inside the printer, and have some of it touch the metal casing.

    You are really my descendant!!

  • CWC (unregistered) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    CWC:
    Thank goodness I live and work in a culture where doing your job and leaving without saying a word (such as "hi") is considered professional behaviour.

    That being said, I recently learned that several complaints to my superiors about my behaviour while trying to help co-workers with their IT problems were made but none of them resulted in any sanctions towards me. Most of them were made by the same woman and I heard she was recently fired. She's also pretty much unemployable because of her age and lack of education. I felt sorry for her for all of five seconds. "Vahingonilo, paras ilo" as they say in my country.

    Some people hate and fear computers, and transfer that antipathy towards those who make a career of it.

    The best part of it is that she had the exact same job as I did, at least on paper. Unfortunately, I am the local 'key user' which, among other duties like testing and error reporting, means I have to help and educate people in using our ERP system.

    When she made mistakes she expected me to correct them but when I tried to teach her to correct them herself (not hard) she'd get really pissy and complain to my boss and his boss. I wouldn't be surprised if she sent e-mails to the CEO.

    They later tried to move her into different kinds of positions around town because she obviously wasn't happy here but the people at those branches wouldn't take her shit at all and she refused to return here so she was thrown out on her ass.

  • hmm (unregistered) in reply to WC
    WC:
    For that third story, the store can actually refuse to hand his computer back until he pays for the services rendered. I'm afraid I'd have been even pettier, though. I wouldn't have let him watch, and I'd have made him wait a week for me to fix it.

    As for the first one, I'd have had stern words with anyone who reprimanded me in that situation. She was clearly out of line and preferred waiting 30 minutes for a fix than doing a simple check. There's no way I would have taken that. And if they still thought that she shouldn't be required to push a button rather than waste 2 people's time, then I'd have gone somewhere else that didn't have so many HR problems.

    He was still unprofessional, though. Some assertiveness training needed, perhaps?

  • Lord0 (unregistered)

    "The next day, someone received a strongly worded letter about their complete lack of professionalism. Sadly, that person was me."

    Quality

  • hmm (unregistered) in reply to StinkyLinky
    StinkyLinky:
    V:
    Wouldn't not giving the guy his computer back until he pays be the smarter thing?

    That's pretty much what every other shop I know of would do. Try getting back your car, your dry cleaning or your pet from any of the appropriate places where you'd drop them off and refuse to pay for service rendered. It will be a long lonely night for Fido I assure you.

    You named your dry cleaning 'Fido'?

  • (cs) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    Theft of Services is a crime. Give him the laptop and demand payment. When he refuses, have security detain him until the cops arrive.

    Attempted crimes are punishable if the defendant took a "substantial step in furtherance" of the criminal purpose. In this case, each step he took toward the door would be enough to convict him.

    I don't know how the law runs on this in the various US states, but in England, having security detain him is also a crime (kidnapping or false imprisonment or some-such).

  • Norman D. Landing (unregistered) in reply to Meep
    Meep:
    Why limit yourself to rectums when there are over 50 sphincters in the human body?

    But most are not accessable from outside the body...

  • Kill Bill #3 (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    thnurg:
    There is a concept in law called lein. One of its meanings is that if you work on something for a customer you have the right to hang on to it until they pay. If the old guy refuses to pay he does not get his machine back until he does.
    A lien is an encumbrance on a title. Tell me, which government agency issues titles for computers?

    The one that defines "title" as a legal concept, per entitled / entitlement / ownership / belonging, rather than assuming "Title" equates to "Title Deed" aka "Deeds to the House"... Theft Act 1968 & 1978 for the UK. Gawd only knows the USAsians legal system!

    Lien = encumbrance on title = I'll hold on to this until you pay, as a Necessary (google it!) action in prevention of an anticipated crime (being the theft of said services).

  • Kill Bill #3 (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    hoodaticus:
    Theft of Services is a crime. Give him the laptop and demand payment. When he refuses, have security detain him until the cops arrive.

    Attempted crimes are punishable if the defendant took a "substantial step in furtherance" of the criminal purpose. In this case, each step he took toward the door would be enough to convict him.

    I don't know how the law runs on this in the various US states, but in England, having security detain him is also a crime (kidnapping or false imprisonment or some-such).

    Dude, no it isn't. Did you ever see a security guard nab a shoplifters? Was that kidnapping or making an entirely lawful arrest? Honestly folks, the UK has published it's legal codes online for some years now. Use to be hmso.gov.uk but probably moved now...

  • (cs) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    Probably because she's a cunt...

    Am I right in saying that this insult is only applied to women in the US? Does it mean something in particular?(I assume similar to "bitch") Weirdly its the opposite in the UK, where its generally applied to men, as a generic insult, the meaning supplied by the context.

  • CWC (unregistered) in reply to method1

    Is this relevant? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61V9SLGE8jo How the hell is this spam? Akismet is a fucking cunt.

  • (cs) in reply to StinkyLinky
    StinkyLinky:
    That's pretty much what every other shop I know of would do. Try getting back your car, your dry cleaning or your pet from any of the appropriate places where you'd drop them off and refuse to pay for service rendered. It will be a long lonely night for Fido I assure you.
    Why do you call your car Fido?
  • (cs) in reply to Vlad Patryshev
    Vlad Patryshev:
    And anyway, what is the meaning of "online" button? It's like "explode me" button on spaceships.
    No-one was expecting the nurse to know that she had to press the "online" button, but she should have had the courtesy to listen to the tech telling her to press the button and then try pressing it. Not a big deal, and would have taken her a lot less time than writing a snarky letter to the tech's boss.
  • Kerin (unregistered) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    Of course, my loyalty is about to be rewarded.

    Just me, or does that sound like something an underling would say before the villain murders him to make a point? maybe i've watched too many movies.

  • Random Person (unregistered) in reply to voyou

    Sure. Since the printer was used to print ID bracelets, I'm sure that a bunch of people were stuck waiting another hour to be admitted into the emergency room. Medical bureacrats are the worst.

  • Martin Bishop (unregistered) in reply to voyou

    A little compassion and a brief 10 second look is all the guy was asking for. The nurse did have time to write that letter..

  • eVil (unregistered)

    The only solution for a woman like that is immediate defenestration.

    Repeated iteration of this can then be used to solve any subsequent problems arising from earlier defenestration.

  • Hortical (unregistered) in reply to Henning Makholm
    Henning Makholm:
    Would that be anything like a lien, I wonder?

    (Brogrammer's response, attempting to point out the mistake by bolding it and adding additional misspellings in his own text, might well be too subtle for this illustrious readership, though).

    More likely, you agree with his implied political views and so want to think of him as smart (to also think of yourself as smart and bolster the legitimacy of those views) and so assume there is some ingenious subtle point he was making despite a total lack of evidence.

  • Hortical (unregistered) in reply to Meep
    Meep:
    Why limit yourself to rectums when there are over 50 sphincters in the human body?

    Well, I'd like to have my way with a heart ventricle sometime, but I think even Thai whores charge too much for that maneuver.

  • jc (unregistered) in reply to Childish
    Childish:
    That nurse would have sent HR her rounds for that night. Patient in room 301 got an insulin shot. Room 405 needed Warfarin to prevent a stroke... People can actually die when a nurse waits for a printer to get fixed.

    I'd be worried about having a nurse who doesn't have the brains to try turning a device on when it's not working. I'd report to her superiors that she wasted time she could have been helping patients by demanding that I drive over just to turn a device on. Any nurse who does something this stupid is a serious threat to her patients.

    Of course, it could have been one of those cases where she'd been on duty for 28 hours straight, and was basically a walking zombie, unable to understand a simple on/off button. She'd still be a danger to her patients, but it wouldn't be her failure; the blame would go to her superiors.

  • JustSomeGuy (unregistered)

    someone received a strongly worded letter about their complete lack of professionalism

    Nah, unprofessional would have been to loudly grunt "Bitch!" just as you were pressing the button. Would have been justified...but unprofessional.

  • (cs) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    hoodaticus:
    Theft of Services is a crime. Give him the laptop and demand payment. When he refuses, have security detain him until the cops arrive.

    Attempted crimes are punishable if the defendant took a "substantial step in furtherance" of the criminal purpose. In this case, each step he took toward the door would be enough to convict him.

    I don't know how the law runs on this in the various US states, but in England, having security detain him is also a crime (kidnapping or false imprisonment or some-such).

    It's called a "Citizen's Arrest" and it's perfectly legal in all states except NC for felonies. Applicability for misdemeanors vary by state. -Former Security Officer

  • zunesis (unregistered) in reply to JustSomeGuy
    JustSomeGuy:
    > someone received a strongly worded letter about their complete lack of professionalism

    Nah, unprofessional would have been to loudly grunt "Bitch!" just as you were pressing [her] button. Would have been justified...[and hot].

  • (cs) in reply to Kerin
    Kerin:
    hoodaticus:
    Of course, my loyalty is about to be rewarded.

    Just me, or does that sound like something an underling would say before the villain murders him to make a point? maybe i've watched too many movies.

    It also reminds me of a movie: "Human Centipede".

  • (cs)

    Of all the places I have worked (ranging from night shift gas station clerk, to a hospital, to combat and weapons simulations testing) I would have to say working for the hospital was the worst. Most of the doctors and nurses are pretty nice and considerate and will treat IT staff fairly. Every so often however, you find that one who treats everyone else whom isn't a nurse or doctor, as complete scum.

  • (cs) in reply to WC
    WC:
    For that third story, the store can actually refuse to hand his computer back until he pays for the services rendered.
    Unfortunately, they fixed it without authorization for the charges from the customer, so as crazy as it sounds, un-fixing may have been the smartest course for legal reasons.
  • (cs) in reply to Brogrammer
    Brogrammer:
    thnurg:
    There is a concept in law called lein. One of its meanings is that if you work on something for a customer you have the right to hang on to it until they pay. If the old guy refuses to pay he does not get his machine back until he does.

    Did you go to the same "law school" as Michele Bachman?

    Ironic, because you misspelled her name. Really, misspelling a legal term means you're an idiot? FWIW, she got her Masters from William and Mary, which isn't as prestigious as Harvard but it was good enough to work for the IRS for several years.

  • Eric (unregistered)

    Heh...a lot of comments about my story. A couple points:

    • The nurse was a known curmudgeon unwilling to do anything herself when IT was concerned, and was NOT busy or in a critical care area.

    • I wasn't surly when I silently fixed the problem and quickly left.

    • I'm the one the sent the letter to my managers about her unprofessional-ism. I left that job shortly after to eventually become an IT manager at another company.

    Oh, and I was salaried and didn't receive any additional pay for the after-hours call. Not a great salary either. At least the on-call weeks were several months apart.

    I see some others have experience with the Zebra printers. What a PITA they were!

  • zunesis (unregistered) in reply to Norman D. Landing
    Norman D. Landing:
    Meep:
    Why limit yourself to rectums when there are over 50 sphincters in the human body?

    But most are not accessable from outside the body...

    Never stopped me before!

  • Mickey Blue Eyes (unregistered) in reply to Machtyn

    That also means the nurse didn't have time (or professionalism) to talk to patients or check to see if the button to a life support system is turned on.

    I feel sorry for the cadavers (formerly known as patients) on that nurse's floor.

    Maybe the nurse was upset that when a doctor said "jump" had to reply "how high", she now had the opportunity to tell someone of a lower caste than her to "jump" and any response other than "how high" is "unprofessional".

  • fritters (unregistered) in reply to hmm
    hmm:
    You named your dry cleaning 'Fido'?

    DUH. Pay attention when you read.

    It was his DRY CLEANING that was named Fido.

  • (cs) in reply to Mickey Blue Eyes

    Shucks, the nurse apparently suffered from acute endocephaloproctosis, possibly due to some 3am stress arising from a previously experienced petty penis problem that led to an empty vaginal concern. My experience has been that apologetically and cheerfully alleviating the situation with compassion ( especially if she's hot ) could possibly lead to accolades instead reprimands. One never knows, until one tries. You may have been recognized as employee of the month, an highly prized and cherished award. This may have possibly led to receiving some free medical exams on the side, with sphincter analysis on a pro re nata and ad libitum basis. Nurses can be friendly like that when well humored. There's something to be said for being obsequious.

  • (cs) in reply to Eric
    Eric:
    Heh...a lot of comments about my story. A couple points:

    • The nurse was a known curmudgeon unwilling to do anything herself when IT was concerned, and was NOT busy or in a critical care area.

    • I wasn't surly when I silently fixed the problem and quickly left.

    • I'm the one the sent the letter to my managers about her unprofessional-ism. I left that job shortly after to eventually become an IT manager at another company.

    Oh, and I was salaried and didn't receive any additional pay for the after-hours call. Not a great salary either. At least the on-call weeks were several months apart.

    I see some others have experience with the Zebra printers. What a PITA they were!

    Having spent far too long doing tech support for those kinds of users, the correct way to handle it is to politely shift the blame onto 'processes' - as in: 'I'm sorry, Nursey, but I'm not able to schedule an engineer visit without confirming these details first, standard procedure, nothing I can do, fuck you.' (The 'fuck you' is silent.)

  • (cs) in reply to nonpartisan
    nonpartisan:
    I'm hoping Eric had a decent manager who would stand up for him. Such a manager would go to the department in question and explain how this simple little fix now cost two hours of overtime pay plus call-in pay for having the analyst come in just to press a button.

    Sadly, we're now salaried, so if I go in to fix something, I don't get paid nothin' more.

    The fact that he got written up tells me he doesn't have such a manager, which is the real WTF. My manager is the kind who would stand up like, and has stood up like that, in times of ridiculousness like this. My manager (managers, actually . . . I have two . . .) is great like this.

    You're assuming the manager knew both sides of the story when he was written up.

  • hmm (unregistered) in reply to fritters
    fritters:
    hmm:
    You named your dry cleaning 'Fido'?

    DUH. Pay attention when you read.

    It was his DRY CLEANING that was named Fido.

    hmm

  • zunesis (unregistered) in reply to fubarsnafu
    fubarsnafu:

    Shucks, the nurse apparently suffered from acute endocephaloproctosis, possibly due to some 3am stress arising from a previously experienced petty penis problem that led to an empty vaginal concern. My experience has been that apologetically and cheerfully alleviating the situation with compassion ( especially if she's hot ) could possibly lead to accolades instead reprimands. One never knows, until one tries. You may have been recognized as employee of the month, an highly prized and cherished award. This may have possibly led to receiving some free medical exams on the side, with sphincter analysis on a pro re nata and ad libitum basis. Nurses can be friendly like that when well humored. There's something to be said for being obsequious.

    Yeah, with a huge rubber dildo!

  • (cs) in reply to Jerry
    Jerry:
    hoodaticus:
    thnurg:
    There is a concept in law called lein. One of its meanings is that if you work on something for a customer you have the right to hang on to it until they pay. If the old guy refuses to pay he does not get his machine back until he does.
    A lien is an encumbrance on a title. Tell me, which government agency issues titles for computers?
    In those legal systems descended from ancient British law, every object which can be possessed has a title associated with it. Maybe a thief has your pencil in his possession, but the title is still yours.

    For higher dollar items, government agencies may exist to help you register your title, so when it is stolen there is a third party to resolve the ownership dispute. But you can hold title to a computer (or a lein on that title) without any government agency's assistance.

    Yeah, it's been 5 years since I studied the UCC, but you can get one with a UCC-1 filing statement in common law states (sorry Louisiana!). Nice answer, Jerry!

  • (cs) in reply to method1
    method1:
    C-Octothorpe:
    Probably because she's a cunt...

    Am I right in saying that this insult is only applied to women in the US? Does it mean something in particular?(I assume similar to "bitch") Weirdly its the opposite in the UK, where its generally applied to men, as a generic insult, the meaning supplied by the context.

    In the U.S., it's a synonym for a woman's vertical smile. It only generalizes to women via synecdoche.

  • (cs) in reply to boog
    boog:
    hoodaticus:
    boog:
    When he came in, he refused to pay, saying that we’d already fixed his computer and couldn’t un-fix it.
    Did the guy think he'd apparently discovered a loophole in having to pay for services rendered? I wonder how many other services he's tried to avoid paying this way?
    Theft of Services is a crime.
    I'm fully aware of this; could it be possible that the old man in the story was not?
    I didn't mean it that way... you're one of the most knowledgeable people on here, and one of my top 5 favorites :).
  • (cs) in reply to zunesis
    zunesis:
    fubarsnafu:

    Shucks, the nurse apparently suffered from acute endocephaloproctosis, possibly due to some 3am stress arising from a previously experienced petty penis problem that led to an empty vaginal concern. My experience has been that apologetically and cheerfully alleviating the situation with compassion ( especially if she's hot ) could possibly lead to accolades instead reprimands. One never knows, until one tries. You may have been recognized as employee of the month, an highly prized and cherished award. This may have possibly led to receiving some free medical exams on the side, with sphincter analysis on a pro re nata and ad libitum basis. Nurses can be friendly like that when well humored. There's something to be said for being obsequious.

    Yeah, with a huge rubber dildo!

    Some restraint here, please? Let's not forget such things may become out of hand.

  • (cs) in reply to Norman D. Landing
    Norman D. Landing:
    Meep:
    Why limit yourself to rectums when there are over 50 sphincters in the human body?

    But most are not accessable from outside the body...

    You sound lazy.

  • (cs) in reply to bastard_operator_from_hell
    bastard_operator_from_hell:
    hoodaticus:
    C-Octothorpe:
    hoodaticus:
    He should have sent a 500 page print job to that printer - of bestial porn - with the bitch's name on it. Get her fired.
    That's not necessary... I'm sure some forged print logs would do the trick.
    Nice! Another idea - remove the earthing pin from the wall plug, strip a live wire inside the printer, and have some of it touch the metal casing.

    You are really my descendant!!

    You don't remember me? I'm your PFY!

  • (cs) in reply to hoodaticus
    hoodaticus:
    boog:
    hoodaticus:
    boog:
    When he came in, he refused to pay, saying that we’d already fixed his computer and couldn’t un-fix it.
    Did the guy think he'd apparently discovered a loophole in having to pay for services rendered? I wonder how many other services he's tried to avoid paying this way?
    Theft of Services is a crime.
    I'm fully aware of this; could it be possible that the old man in the story was not?
    I didn't mean it that way...
    Okay, but think about it. The old man admitted that they fixed his computer and still refused to pay for their services. Did he not realize that's a crime?

    I guess it could be different if he was displeased with their services, or if they tried to sell him work he didn't ask for. My wife's a vet, and she and her clients sign estimates for the work she does on their pets. So if she's running blood tests on a dog and finds out what's wrong, she can't just treat it without going over the results with the client first; she's not allowed to just add things to the bill without the client's approval. In this case, maybe the old man just asked them to look at his laptop and tell him what's wrong with it, but they fixed it without his asking and charged him for the fix.

    Or more likely the old man was just a total douche.

    hoodaticus:
    you're one of the most knowledgeable people on here, and one of my top 5 favorites :).
    D'awww...
  • (cs) in reply to boog
    boog:
    hoodaticus:
    boog:
    hoodaticus:
    boog:
    When he came in, he refused to pay, saying that we’d already fixed his computer and couldn’t un-fix it.
    Did the guy think he'd apparently discovered a loophole in having to pay for services rendered? I wonder how many other services he's tried to avoid paying this way?
    Theft of Services is a crime.
    I'm fully aware of this; could it be possible that the old man in the story was not?
    I didn't mean it that way...
    Okay, but think about it. The old man admitted that they fixed his computer and still refused to pay for their services. Did he not realize that's a crime?

    I guess it could be different if he was displeased with their services, or if they tried to sell him work he didn't ask for. My wife's a vet, and she and her clients sign estimates for the work she does on their pets. So if she's running blood tests on a dog and finds out what's wrong, she can't just treat it without going over the results with the client first; she's not allowed to just add things to the bill without the client's approval. In this case, maybe the old man just asked them to look at his laptop and tell him what's wrong with it, but they fixed it without his asking and charged him for the fix.

    Or more likely the old man was just a total douche.

    hoodaticus:
    you're one of the most knowledgeable people on here, and one of my top 5 favorites :).
    D'awww...
    Good point. He would have known it was morally wrong even if he was a psychopath with no conscience (since the 1% of the population that are psychopaths feel pleasure from screwing someone over).
  • (cs) in reply to boog
    boog:
    D'awww...
    I knew it all along! boog is Bashful! [image] (with hot-linking goodness)
  • (cs) in reply to Loren Pechtel
    Loren Pechtel:
    nonpartisan:
    I'm hoping Eric had a decent manager who would stand up for him. Such a manager would go to the department in question and explain how this simple little fix now cost two hours of overtime pay plus call-in pay for having the analyst come in just to press a button.

    Sadly, we're now salaried, so if I go in to fix something, I don't get paid nothin' more.

    The fact that he got written up tells me he doesn't have such a manager, which is the real WTF. My manager is the kind who would stand up like, and has stood up like that, in times of ridiculousness like this. My manager (managers, actually . . . I have two . . .) is great like this.

    You're assuming the manager knew both sides of the story when he was written up.

    My manager would damn well know my side of the story before I got written up. He would be talking to the RN's manager as well. If the RN insisted on filing the complaint, I'd be writing my own letter documenting what happened, include it in my file with the complaint, and my manager would be writing something up to go in my file too.

    In 10+ years here I can honestly say I've never had a complaint put in my file and I have had some commendations put in there.

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