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Monday, November 11, 2013

Can't anybody here play this game?

Things are getting kind of funky in Temp Town. First, they cut back on the cleaning staff hours, leading to a major buildup of garbage. The solution to that, apparently, was to double the number of trash cans in the kitchen area so they wouldn't be overflowing with trash. When that didn't help -- food garbage starts to stink, after all, even if the trash can isn't overflowing -- management at the agency (reluctantly, I think) arranged for more frequent emptying of the trash cans.

Next, one of the long-time project managers from the law firm was mysteriously called back to work at the firm's offices, no explanation given to the lowly temps. Probably had nothing to do with the fact that he was upset about the garbage situation and made his feelings known to the agency. Totally unrelated, I'm sure. In any event, while I have no deep personal connection with any of the folks from the law firm -- on this or any other project -- the manager who was called to Jesus was very efficient at assigning new batches for review before folks were done with the batch they were working on. This helps keep work flowing, obviously. Why they don't use the function of the review platform we are using that allows reviewers to check out a new batch themselves (like every other project I've ever been on) is beyond me, but this guy monitored progress and made sure you always had a batch assignment. Now we have to send an email requesting a new batch.

Naturally, it can take a while for someone to respond and give you a new batch, but today we got a new twist on that. Over the weekend, the temp agency replaced its email servers and moved us to a new email platform. They didn't bother to tell anyone, meaning we were all using the old platform, trying to email request for new batches and getting no joy. The emails would appear to have been sent, but no one was getting them. No one bothered to tell us this would happen. This is the kind of thing that practically screams for an announcement to let people know that they didn't have email, despite what they might think. They probably sent the announcement via email and, of course, the system couldn't deliver it.

It was well after lunch before some IT type came along and told us we were on a new email platform and gave us instructions on how to access it. Absolutely batshit. This is rapidly degenerating into the worst-managed project I've ever been on. And that's saying something.

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